\\n\\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.\",\n \">\\n\\nYes I like it\",\n \">\\n\\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \\\"immoral\\\" to get rid of you.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\\n\\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\\n\\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\\n\\nNo one \\\"put it there\\\" it implanted. It is not a child.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \\nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \\n\\nNo, you didn't. \\n\\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nNo, you didn't.\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \\nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \\nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \\nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \\n\\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\\n\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \\n\\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.\",\n \">\\n\\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nwar is immoral\\n\\nusually, but not always\\n\\ndeath penalty is immoral\\n\\nyep\\n\\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\\n\\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\\n\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\\n\\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?\",\n \">\\n\\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.\",\n \">\\n\\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful\",\n \">\\n\\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \\\"yes, she should be able to choose\\\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.\",\n \">\\n\\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \\nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \\nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \\nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \\nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \\nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \\nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \\nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \\nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?\",\n \">\\n\\ndid you even read the post?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \\nPeriod. \\nFull stop.\",\n \">\\n\\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?\",\n \">\\n\\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.\",\n \">\\n\\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.\",\n \">\\n\\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \\nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \\n\\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\\n\\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.\",\n \">\\n\\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate\",\n \">\\n\\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo\\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\\n(please answer)\",\n \">\\n\\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\\nsame answer as you :)\",\n \">\\n\\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \\\"dies\\\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nHow so?\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the premise.\",\n \">\\n\\nIn what way?\",\n \">\\n\\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \\\"tissue.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \\\"kill\\\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\\n\\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.\",\n \">\\n\\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?\",\n \">\\n\\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \\\"something done\\\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \\nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\\n\\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\\n\\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \\n\\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nalready gave delta for this.\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nwho decides which situations have \\\"no correct choice?\\\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \\n\\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \\nbody.\\n\\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \\\"I believe you should\\\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nA conscientious objector\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\n\\nidk\\n\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\\n\\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\n\\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\\n\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\\n\\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\\n\\nidk\\n\\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?\",\n \">\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \\nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \\nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\n\\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\\n\\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\\n\\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.\",\n \">\\n\\nI stand firm in my view that the words \\\"pro-life\\\" and \\\"anti-abortion\\\" should be changed to be simply \\\"pro-birth\\\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.\",\n \">\\n\\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \\nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it\",\n \">\\n\\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \\nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \\nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \\\"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \\nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?\",\n \">\\n\\nThat wasn't \\\"God\\\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \\\"God\\\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?\",\n \">\\n\\nKeep going I'm almost there\",\n \">\\n\\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.\"\n]"}}},{"rowIdx":177096,"cells":{"comment":{"kind":"string","value":">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then"},"context":{"kind":"list like","value":["/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",">\n\nWhat a shit take.",">\n\nWhy? Explain",">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",">\n\nYes I like it",">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",">\n\ndid you even read the post?",">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",">\n\nyou did not address the post.",">\n\nHow so?",">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",">\n\nIn what way?",">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child."],"string":"[\n \"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards\",\n \">\\n\\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \\\"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\\\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \\\"fully fledged\\\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \\\"fully fledged people\\\"?\\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \\\"fully fledged person\\\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \\\"fully-fledged\\\" should mean \\\"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\\\"\\n\\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\\n\\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \\nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.\",\n \">\\n\\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?\",\n \">\\n\\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\n\\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\\n\\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\n\\nABSOLUTELY\",\n \">\\n\\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\\n\\nyes. \\n\\nOf course not.\\n\\nwhy not?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.\",\n \">\\n\\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \\\"at fault\\\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \\\"normal\\\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.\",\n \">\\n\\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \\\"fault\\\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \\\"cold blooded murder is wrong\\\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\\n\\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?\",\n \">\\n\\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \\\"what is intuitively moral\\\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\\nDeontology says that you do \\\"what is right in the moment\\\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \\\"no rights are absolute\\\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \\\"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\\\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \\\"the end justifies the means\\\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \\\"being shunned for being unvaccinated\\\" is also a consequence of that.\",\n \">\\n\\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \\nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \\nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \\\"magical\\\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.\",\n \">\\n\\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \\nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\\n\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\\n\\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\\n\\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \\nYour initial post stated \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\\\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\\\"\\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).\",\n \">\\n\\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \\n\\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \\n\\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\\n\\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?\",\n \">\\n\\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.\",\n \">\\n\\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\\nTwo questions:\\n\\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?\",\n \">\\n\\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \\npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \\nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?\",\n \">\\n\\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.\",\n \">\\n\\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\\n\\nu should bite the bullet.\\n\\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?\",\n \">\\n\\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \\nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \\n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)\",\n \">\\n\\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \\nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.\",\n \">\\n\\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat a shit take.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy? Explain\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \\\"assaulted\\\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \\\"Most concerning\\\" reason.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\\n\\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBuzzfeed\\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\\n\\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\\n\\nNo. Did you think I did?\",\n \">\\n\\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \\\"It's difficult\\\".\\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\\n\\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\\n\\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\\n\\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \\\"anti birth\\\".\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?\",\n \">\\n\\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \\nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \\\"no\\\" and leave? \\nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.\",\n \">\\n\\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?\",\n \">\\n\\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?\",\n \">\\n\\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.\",\n \">\\n\\nOk... so you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\" as the dividing line for saying \\\"it's a human\\\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \\nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \\\"human\\\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\"\\n\\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\\n\\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\\n\\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\\n\\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\\n\\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.\",\n \">\\n\\nYour \\\"independent thought experiment\\\" is flawed right off the bat as \\\"morality\\\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \\\"moral\\\" and \\\"justified\\\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.\",\n \">\\n\\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.\",\n \">\\n\\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \\\"morality\\\" or \\\"immorality\\\" so... we're all stuck until then.\",\n \">\\n\\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \\\"moral\\\" decision.\",\n \">\\n\\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\\n\\n\\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\\n\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\\n\\n\\n\\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \\\"depriving them of something positive\\\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\n\\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\\n\\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \\n\\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \\n\\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\\n\\nI don't know what \\\"whole life\\\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\\n\\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\n\\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \\\"gift of life\\\" point.\\n\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\\n\\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\\n\\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\\n\\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\\n\\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \\n\\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou clearly did not read the post\",\n \">\\n\\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.\",\n \">\\n\\nYes I like it\",\n \">\\n\\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \\\"immoral\\\" to get rid of you.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\\n\\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\\n\\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\\n\\nNo one \\\"put it there\\\" it implanted. It is not a child.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \\nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \\n\\nNo, you didn't. \\n\\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nNo, you didn't.\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \\nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \\nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \\nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \\n\\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\\n\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \\n\\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.\",\n \">\\n\\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nwar is immoral\\n\\nusually, but not always\\n\\ndeath penalty is immoral\\n\\nyep\\n\\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\\n\\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\\n\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\\n\\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?\",\n \">\\n\\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.\",\n \">\\n\\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful\",\n \">\\n\\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \\\"yes, she should be able to choose\\\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.\",\n \">\\n\\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \\nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \\nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \\nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \\nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \\nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \\nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \\nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \\nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?\",\n \">\\n\\ndid you even read the post?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \\nPeriod. \\nFull stop.\",\n \">\\n\\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?\",\n \">\\n\\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.\",\n \">\\n\\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.\",\n \">\\n\\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \\nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \\n\\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\\n\\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.\",\n \">\\n\\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate\",\n \">\\n\\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo\\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\\n(please answer)\",\n \">\\n\\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\\nsame answer as you :)\",\n \">\\n\\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \\\"dies\\\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nHow so?\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the premise.\",\n \">\\n\\nIn what way?\",\n \">\\n\\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \\\"tissue.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \\\"kill\\\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\\n\\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.\",\n \">\\n\\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?\",\n \">\\n\\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \\\"something done\\\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \\nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\\n\\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\\n\\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \\n\\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nalready gave delta for this.\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nwho decides which situations have \\\"no correct choice?\\\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \\n\\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \\nbody.\\n\\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \\\"I believe you should\\\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nA conscientious objector\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\n\\nidk\\n\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\\n\\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\n\\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\\n\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\\n\\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\\n\\nidk\\n\\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?\",\n \">\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \\nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \\nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\n\\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\\n\\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\\n\\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.\",\n \">\\n\\nI stand firm in my view that the words \\\"pro-life\\\" and \\\"anti-abortion\\\" should be changed to be simply \\\"pro-birth\\\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.\",\n \">\\n\\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \\nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it\",\n \">\\n\\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \\nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \\nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \\\"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \\nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?\",\n \">\\n\\nThat wasn't \\\"God\\\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \\\"God\\\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?\",\n \">\\n\\nKeep going I'm almost there\",\n \">\\n\\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\\n\\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \\nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.\"\n]"}}},{"rowIdx":177097,"cells":{"comment":{"kind":"string","value":">\n\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep."},"context":{"kind":"list like","value":["/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",">\n\nWhat a shit take.",">\n\nWhy? Explain",">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",">\n\nYes I like it",">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",">\n\ndid you even read the post?",">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",">\n\nyou did not address the post.",">\n\nHow so?",">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",">\n\nIn what way?",">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then"],"string":"[\n \"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards\",\n \">\\n\\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \\\"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\\\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \\\"fully fledged\\\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \\\"fully fledged people\\\"?\\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \\\"fully fledged person\\\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \\\"fully-fledged\\\" should mean \\\"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\\\"\\n\\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\\n\\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \\nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.\",\n \">\\n\\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?\",\n \">\\n\\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\n\\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\\n\\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\n\\nABSOLUTELY\",\n \">\\n\\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\\n\\nyes. \\n\\nOf course not.\\n\\nwhy not?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.\",\n \">\\n\\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \\\"at fault\\\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \\\"normal\\\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.\",\n \">\\n\\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \\\"fault\\\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \\\"cold blooded murder is wrong\\\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\\n\\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?\",\n \">\\n\\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \\\"what is intuitively moral\\\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\\nDeontology says that you do \\\"what is right in the moment\\\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \\\"no rights are absolute\\\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \\\"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\\\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \\\"the end justifies the means\\\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \\\"being shunned for being unvaccinated\\\" is also a consequence of that.\",\n \">\\n\\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \\nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \\nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \\\"magical\\\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.\",\n \">\\n\\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \\nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\\n\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\\n\\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\\n\\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \\nYour initial post stated \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\\\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\\\"\\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).\",\n \">\\n\\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \\n\\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \\n\\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\\n\\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?\",\n \">\\n\\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.\",\n \">\\n\\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\\nTwo questions:\\n\\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?\",\n \">\\n\\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \\npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \\nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?\",\n \">\\n\\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.\",\n \">\\n\\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\\n\\nu should bite the bullet.\\n\\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?\",\n \">\\n\\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \\nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \\n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)\",\n \">\\n\\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \\nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.\",\n \">\\n\\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat a shit take.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy? Explain\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \\\"assaulted\\\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \\\"Most concerning\\\" reason.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\\n\\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBuzzfeed\\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\\n\\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\\n\\nNo. Did you think I did?\",\n \">\\n\\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \\\"It's difficult\\\".\\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\\n\\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\\n\\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\\n\\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \\\"anti birth\\\".\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?\",\n \">\\n\\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \\nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \\\"no\\\" and leave? \\nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.\",\n \">\\n\\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?\",\n \">\\n\\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?\",\n \">\\n\\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.\",\n \">\\n\\nOk... so you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\" as the dividing line for saying \\\"it's a human\\\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \\nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \\\"human\\\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\"\\n\\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\\n\\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\\n\\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\\n\\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\\n\\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.\",\n \">\\n\\nYour \\\"independent thought experiment\\\" is flawed right off the bat as \\\"morality\\\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \\\"moral\\\" and \\\"justified\\\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.\",\n \">\\n\\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.\",\n \">\\n\\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \\\"morality\\\" or \\\"immorality\\\" so... we're all stuck until then.\",\n \">\\n\\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \\\"moral\\\" decision.\",\n \">\\n\\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\\n\\n\\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\\n\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\\n\\n\\n\\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \\\"depriving them of something positive\\\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\n\\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\\n\\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \\n\\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \\n\\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\\n\\nI don't know what \\\"whole life\\\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\\n\\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\n\\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \\\"gift of life\\\" point.\\n\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\\n\\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\\n\\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\\n\\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\\n\\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \\n\\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou clearly did not read the post\",\n \">\\n\\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.\",\n \">\\n\\nYes I like it\",\n \">\\n\\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \\\"immoral\\\" to get rid of you.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\\n\\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\\n\\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\\n\\nNo one \\\"put it there\\\" it implanted. It is not a child.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \\nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \\n\\nNo, you didn't. \\n\\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nNo, you didn't.\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \\nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \\nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \\nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \\n\\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\\n\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \\n\\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.\",\n \">\\n\\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nwar is immoral\\n\\nusually, but not always\\n\\ndeath penalty is immoral\\n\\nyep\\n\\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\\n\\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\\n\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\\n\\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?\",\n \">\\n\\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.\",\n \">\\n\\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful\",\n \">\\n\\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \\\"yes, she should be able to choose\\\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.\",\n \">\\n\\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \\nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \\nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \\nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \\nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \\nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \\nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \\nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \\nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?\",\n \">\\n\\ndid you even read the post?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \\nPeriod. \\nFull stop.\",\n \">\\n\\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?\",\n \">\\n\\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.\",\n \">\\n\\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.\",\n \">\\n\\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \\nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \\n\\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\\n\\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.\",\n \">\\n\\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate\",\n \">\\n\\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo\\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\\n(please answer)\",\n \">\\n\\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\\nsame answer as you :)\",\n \">\\n\\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \\\"dies\\\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nHow so?\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the premise.\",\n \">\\n\\nIn what way?\",\n \">\\n\\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \\\"tissue.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \\\"kill\\\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\\n\\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.\",\n \">\\n\\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?\",\n \">\\n\\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \\\"something done\\\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \\nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\\n\\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\\n\\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \\n\\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nalready gave delta for this.\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nwho decides which situations have \\\"no correct choice?\\\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \\n\\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \\nbody.\\n\\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \\\"I believe you should\\\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nA conscientious objector\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\n\\nidk\\n\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\\n\\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\n\\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\\n\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\\n\\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\\n\\nidk\\n\\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?\",\n \">\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \\nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \\nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\n\\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\\n\\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\\n\\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.\",\n \">\\n\\nI stand firm in my view that the words \\\"pro-life\\\" and \\\"anti-abortion\\\" should be changed to be simply \\\"pro-birth\\\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.\",\n \">\\n\\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \\nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it\",\n \">\\n\\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \\nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \\nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \\\"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \\nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?\",\n \">\\n\\nThat wasn't \\\"God\\\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \\\"God\\\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?\",\n \">\\n\\nKeep going I'm almost there\",\n \">\\n\\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\\n\\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \\nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.\",\n \">\\n\\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then\"\n]"}}},{"rowIdx":177098,"cells":{"comment":{"kind":"string","value":">\n\nwell I don't think there's much of a debate here then. The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid"},"context":{"kind":"list like","value":["/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",">\n\nWhat a shit take.",">\n\nWhy? Explain",">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",">\n\nYes I like it",">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",">\n\ndid you even read the post?",">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",">\n\nyou did not address the post.",">\n\nHow so?",">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",">\n\nIn what way?",">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then",">\n\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep."],"string":"[\n \"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards\",\n \">\\n\\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \\\"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\\\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \\\"fully fledged\\\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \\\"fully fledged people\\\"?\\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \\\"fully fledged person\\\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \\\"fully-fledged\\\" should mean \\\"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\\\"\\n\\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\\n\\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \\nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.\",\n \">\\n\\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?\",\n \">\\n\\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\n\\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\\n\\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\n\\nABSOLUTELY\",\n \">\\n\\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\\n\\nyes. \\n\\nOf course not.\\n\\nwhy not?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.\",\n \">\\n\\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \\\"at fault\\\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \\\"normal\\\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.\",\n \">\\n\\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \\\"fault\\\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \\\"cold blooded murder is wrong\\\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\\n\\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?\",\n \">\\n\\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \\\"what is intuitively moral\\\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\\nDeontology says that you do \\\"what is right in the moment\\\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \\\"no rights are absolute\\\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \\\"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\\\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \\\"the end justifies the means\\\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \\\"being shunned for being unvaccinated\\\" is also a consequence of that.\",\n \">\\n\\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \\nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \\nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \\\"magical\\\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.\",\n \">\\n\\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \\nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\\n\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\\n\\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\\n\\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \\nYour initial post stated \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\\\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\\\"\\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).\",\n \">\\n\\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \\n\\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \\n\\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\\n\\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?\",\n \">\\n\\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.\",\n \">\\n\\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\\nTwo questions:\\n\\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?\",\n \">\\n\\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \\npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \\nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?\",\n \">\\n\\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.\",\n \">\\n\\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\\n\\nu should bite the bullet.\\n\\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?\",\n \">\\n\\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \\nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \\n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)\",\n \">\\n\\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \\nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.\",\n \">\\n\\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat a shit take.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy? Explain\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \\\"assaulted\\\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \\\"Most concerning\\\" reason.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\\n\\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBuzzfeed\\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\\n\\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\\n\\nNo. Did you think I did?\",\n \">\\n\\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \\\"It's difficult\\\".\\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\\n\\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\\n\\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\\n\\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \\\"anti birth\\\".\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?\",\n \">\\n\\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \\nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \\\"no\\\" and leave? \\nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.\",\n \">\\n\\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?\",\n \">\\n\\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?\",\n \">\\n\\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.\",\n \">\\n\\nOk... so you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\" as the dividing line for saying \\\"it's a human\\\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \\nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \\\"human\\\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\"\\n\\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\\n\\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\\n\\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\\n\\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\\n\\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.\",\n \">\\n\\nYour \\\"independent thought experiment\\\" is flawed right off the bat as \\\"morality\\\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \\\"moral\\\" and \\\"justified\\\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.\",\n \">\\n\\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.\",\n \">\\n\\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \\\"morality\\\" or \\\"immorality\\\" so... we're all stuck until then.\",\n \">\\n\\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \\\"moral\\\" decision.\",\n \">\\n\\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\\n\\n\\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\\n\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\\n\\n\\n\\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \\\"depriving them of something positive\\\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\n\\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\\n\\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \\n\\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \\n\\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\\n\\nI don't know what \\\"whole life\\\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\\n\\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\n\\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \\\"gift of life\\\" point.\\n\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\\n\\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\\n\\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\\n\\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\\n\\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \\n\\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou clearly did not read the post\",\n \">\\n\\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.\",\n \">\\n\\nYes I like it\",\n \">\\n\\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \\\"immoral\\\" to get rid of you.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\\n\\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\\n\\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\\n\\nNo one \\\"put it there\\\" it implanted. It is not a child.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \\nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \\n\\nNo, you didn't. \\n\\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nNo, you didn't.\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \\nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \\nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \\nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \\n\\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\\n\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \\n\\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.\",\n \">\\n\\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nwar is immoral\\n\\nusually, but not always\\n\\ndeath penalty is immoral\\n\\nyep\\n\\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\\n\\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\\n\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\\n\\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?\",\n \">\\n\\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.\",\n \">\\n\\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful\",\n \">\\n\\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \\\"yes, she should be able to choose\\\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.\",\n \">\\n\\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \\nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \\nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \\nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \\nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \\nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \\nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \\nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \\nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?\",\n \">\\n\\ndid you even read the post?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \\nPeriod. \\nFull stop.\",\n \">\\n\\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?\",\n \">\\n\\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.\",\n \">\\n\\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.\",\n \">\\n\\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \\nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \\n\\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\\n\\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.\",\n \">\\n\\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate\",\n \">\\n\\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo\\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\\n(please answer)\",\n \">\\n\\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\\nsame answer as you :)\",\n \">\\n\\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \\\"dies\\\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nHow so?\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the premise.\",\n \">\\n\\nIn what way?\",\n \">\\n\\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \\\"tissue.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \\\"kill\\\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\\n\\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.\",\n \">\\n\\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?\",\n \">\\n\\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \\\"something done\\\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \\nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\\n\\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\\n\\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \\n\\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nalready gave delta for this.\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nwho decides which situations have \\\"no correct choice?\\\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \\n\\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \\nbody.\\n\\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \\\"I believe you should\\\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nA conscientious objector\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\n\\nidk\\n\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\\n\\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\n\\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\\n\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\\n\\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\\n\\nidk\\n\\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?\",\n \">\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \\nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \\nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\n\\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\\n\\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\\n\\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.\",\n \">\\n\\nI stand firm in my view that the words \\\"pro-life\\\" and \\\"anti-abortion\\\" should be changed to be simply \\\"pro-birth\\\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.\",\n \">\\n\\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \\nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it\",\n \">\\n\\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \\nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \\nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \\\"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \\nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?\",\n \">\\n\\nThat wasn't \\\"God\\\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \\\"God\\\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?\",\n \">\\n\\nKeep going I'm almost there\",\n \">\\n\\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\\n\\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \\nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.\",\n \">\\n\\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then\",\n \">\\n\\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep.\"\n]"}}},{"rowIdx":177099,"cells":{"comment":{"kind":"string","value":">\n\n\nThe only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid\n\nyes, that is basically the title of my post."},"context":{"kind":"list like","value":["/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",">\n\nWhat a shit take.",">\n\nWhy? Explain",">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",">\n\nYes I like it",">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",">\n\ndid you even read the post?",">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",">\n\nyou did not address the post.",">\n\nHow so?",">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",">\n\nIn what way?",">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then",">\n\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep.",">\n\nwell I don't think there's much of a debate here then. The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid"],"string":"[\n \"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards\",\n \">\\n\\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \\\"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\\\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \\\"fully fledged\\\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \\\"fully fledged people\\\"?\\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \\\"fully fledged person\\\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \\\"fully-fledged\\\" should mean \\\"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\\\"\\n\\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\\n\\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \\nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.\",\n \">\\n\\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?\",\n \">\\n\\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\\n\\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\\n\\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\\n\\nABSOLUTELY\",\n \">\\n\\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\\n\\nyes. \\n\\nOf course not.\\n\\nwhy not?\",\n \">\\n\\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.\",\n \">\\n\\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \\\"at fault\\\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \\\"normal\\\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.\",\n \">\\n\\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \\\"fault\\\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \\\"cold blooded murder is wrong\\\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\\n\\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?\",\n \">\\n\\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \\\"what is intuitively moral\\\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\\nDeontology says that you do \\\"what is right in the moment\\\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \\\"no rights are absolute\\\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \\\"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\\\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \\\"the end justifies the means\\\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \\\"being shunned for being unvaccinated\\\" is also a consequence of that.\",\n \">\\n\\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \\nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \\nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \\\"magical\\\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.\",\n \">\\n\\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \\nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\\n\\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\\n\\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\\n\\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\\n\\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \\nYour initial post stated \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\\\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \\\"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\\\"\\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).\",\n \">\\n\\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \\n\\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \\n\\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\\n\\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?\",\n \">\\n\\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.\",\n \">\\n\\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\\nTwo questions:\\n\\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?\",\n \">\\n\\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \\npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \\nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?\",\n \">\\n\\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.\",\n \">\\n\\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.\",\n \">\\n\\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\\n\\nu should bite the bullet.\\n\\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?\",\n \">\\n\\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \\nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \\n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)\",\n \">\\n\\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \\nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.\",\n \">\\n\\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhat a shit take.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy? Explain\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \\\"assaulted\\\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \\\"Most concerning\\\" reason.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\\n\\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBuzzfeed\\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\\n\\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\\n\\nNo. Did you think I did?\",\n \">\\n\\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \\\"It's difficult\\\".\\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\\n\\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\\n\\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\\n\\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \\\"anti birth\\\".\",\n \">\\n\\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?\",\n \">\\n\\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \\nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \\\"no\\\" and leave? \\nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.\",\n \">\\n\\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?\",\n \">\\n\\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?\",\n \">\\n\\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.\",\n \">\\n\\nOk... so you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\" as the dividing line for saying \\\"it's a human\\\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \\nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \\\"human\\\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso you've chosen the \\\"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\\\"\\n\\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\\n\\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\\n\\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\\n\\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\\n\\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.\",\n \">\\n\\nYour \\\"independent thought experiment\\\" is flawed right off the bat as \\\"morality\\\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \\\"moral\\\" and \\\"justified\\\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.\",\n \">\\n\\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.\",\n \">\\n\\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \\\"morality\\\" or \\\"immorality\\\" so... we're all stuck until then.\",\n \">\\n\\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.\",\n \">\\n\\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \\\"moral\\\" decision.\",\n \">\\n\\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\\n\\n\\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\\n\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\\n\\n\\n\\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \\\"depriving them of something positive\\\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \\\"deprivation\\\" is zero.\\n\\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \\\"gift of life\\\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\\n\\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \\n\\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \\n\\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\\n\\nI don't know what \\\"whole life\\\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\\n\\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\\n\\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \\n\\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\\n\\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \\\"gift of life\\\" point.\\n\\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\\n\\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\\n\\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\\n\\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\\n\\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \\n\\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.\",\n \">\\n\\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou clearly did not read the post\",\n \">\\n\\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.\",\n \">\\n\\nYes I like it\",\n \">\\n\\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \\\"immoral\\\" to get rid of you.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\\n\\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\\n\\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\\n\\nNo one \\\"put it there\\\" it implanted. It is not a child.\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \\nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \\n\\nNo, you didn't. \\n\\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nNo, you didn't.\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \\n\\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\\n\\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \\nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \\nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\\n\\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \\n\\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \\nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \\n\\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\\n\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\\n\\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \\n\\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \\n\\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.\",\n \">\\n\\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nwar is immoral\\n\\nusually, but not always\\n\\ndeath penalty is immoral\\n\\nyep\\n\\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\\n\\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\\n\\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\\n\\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?\",\n \">\\n\\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.\",\n \">\\n\\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.\",\n \">\\n\\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful\",\n \">\\n\\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \\\"yes, she should be able to choose\\\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.\",\n \">\\n\\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \\nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \\nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\\n\\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \\nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \\nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \\nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \\nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \\nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \\nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?\",\n \">\\n\\ndid you even read the post?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \\nPeriod. \\nFull stop.\",\n \">\\n\\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?\",\n \">\\n\\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.\",\n \">\\n\\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.\",\n \">\\n\\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \\nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \\n\\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\\n\\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.\",\n \">\\n\\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate\",\n \">\\n\\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?\",\n \">\\n\\nNo\\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\\n(please answer)\",\n \">\\n\\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\\nsame answer as you :)\",\n \">\\n\\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \\\"dies\\\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the post.\",\n \">\\n\\nHow so?\",\n \">\\n\\nyou did not address the premise.\",\n \">\\n\\nIn what way?\",\n \">\\n\\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \\\"tissue.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \\\"kill\\\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.\",\n \">\\n\\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\\n\\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.\",\n \">\\n\\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.\",\n \">\\n\\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?\",\n \">\\n\\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \\\"something done\\\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \\nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\\n\\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \\nu did not give them kidney disease\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\\n\\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \\n\\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\\n\\nalready gave delta for this.\\n\\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\\n\\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\\n\\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\\n\\nwho decides which situations have \\\"no correct choice?\\\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \\n\\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \\nbody.\\n\\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\\n\\nwell, then I believe you should.\\n\\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\\n\\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\\n\\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \\\"I believe you should\\\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\\n\\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\\n\\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\\n\\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nA conscientious objector\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\\n\\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\\n\\nidk\\n\\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \\\"not a science\\\"?\\n\\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\\n\\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\\n\\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\\n\\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\\n\\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\\n\\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\\n\\nidk\\n\\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\\n\\nthe parents\\n\\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\\n\\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\\n\\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\\n\\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\\n\\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\\n\\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\\n\\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?\",\n \">\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \\nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \\nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\\n\\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\\n\\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\\n\\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.\",\n \">\\n\\nI stand firm in my view that the words \\\"pro-life\\\" and \\\"anti-abortion\\\" should be changed to be simply \\\"pro-birth\\\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.\",\n \">\\n\\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \\nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it\",\n \">\\n\\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \\nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \\nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \\\"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\\\"\",\n \">\\n\\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \\nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.\",\n \">\\n\\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.\",\n \">\\n\\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?\",\n \">\\n\\nThat wasn't \\\"God\\\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \\\"God\\\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?\",\n \">\\n\\nKeep going I'm almost there\",\n \">\\n\\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.\",\n \">\\n\\n\\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\\n\\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \\nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.\",\n \">\\n\\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then\",\n \">\\n\\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep.\",\n \">\\n\\nwell I don't think there's much of a debate here then. The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid\"\n]"}}}],"truncated":false,"partial":false},"paginationData":{"pageIndex":1770,"numItemsPerPage":100,"numTotalItems":184030,"offset":177000,"length":100}},"jwt":"eyJhbGciOiJFZERTQSJ9.eyJyZWFkIjp0cnVlLCJwZXJtaXNzaW9ucyI6eyJyZXBvLmNvbnRlbnQucmVhZCI6dHJ1ZX0sImlhdCI6MTc0NzQ0NzY0Miwic3ViIjoiL2RhdGFzZXRzL2lubm92YXRpb24taGFja2luZzIvc2hpdHBvc3RpbmdfZGF0YXNldDMiLCJleHAiOjE3NDc0NTEyNDIsImlzcyI6Imh0dHBzOi8vaHVnZ2luZ2ZhY2UuY28ifQ.IUhjYZY1E_AYwoI5PMtSA27ccCgv3kUslNgT5xZvxsezF6UKS2UGaHfkj-4A36fqYekZ_qeqe2n-Z6Cy8ERWAw","displayUrls":true},"discussionsStats":{"closed":0,"open":0,"total":0},"fullWidth":true,"hasGatedAccess":true,"hasFullAccess":true,"isEmbedded":false,"savedQueries":{"community":[],"user":[]}}">
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No, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing.
I understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)"
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and that is a true statement. same as the post. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live."
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If a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post."
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What a shit take. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense."
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Why? Explain | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take."
] |
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I'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.
A fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being "assaulted". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.
I've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for "Most concerning" reason. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain"
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A fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.
Yes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason."
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Buzzfeed
Perfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question
No offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?"
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did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?
No. Did you think I did? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy."
] |
>
You yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me "It's difficult".
Speaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?"
] |
>
is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?
No, if she's giving birth with her consent.
Yes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?
If you answered yes then you're anti birth.
I've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone "anti birth". | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period."
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Why do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\"."
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Try having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?"
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The way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids?
But of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say "no" and leave?
No human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you."
] |
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That a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children."
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Are you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state."
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We don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability."
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a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.
There's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.
If a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).
So - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?
You've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?
One example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?
What about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?
Or how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?
So then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves."
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So how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?"
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None, since a sperm is not a fetus. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?"
] |
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Ok... so you've chosen the "sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two" as the dividing line for saying "it's a human". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.
Technically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of "human" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus."
] |
>
so you've chosen the "sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two"
no, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.
Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.
we're not talking about my dividing line.
I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.
hardly. zygotes are not babies. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around."
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Your "independent thought experiment" is flawed right off the bat as "morality" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be "moral" and "justified" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies."
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all morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity."
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Dude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of "morality" or "immorality" so... we're all stuck until then. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid."
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fair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then."
] |
>
The best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the "moral" decision. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it."
] |
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well... if a fetus is a person....
then wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus??? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision."
] |
>
However, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:
u did not give them kidney disease
u are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)
u have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).
We can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.
To meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.
For the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.
What do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.
To express this formally, we can say the following:
Let's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.
This explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.
However, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???"
] |
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That makes sense if you look at it from a "depriving them of something positive" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net "deprivation" is zero.
This kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a "gift of life" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body."
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Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net "deprivation" is zero.
Unless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?
This kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a "gift of life" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.
That's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.
This does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.
My argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case."
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Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?
presumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.
The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.
maybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.
a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.
yes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.
The point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people."
] |
>
presumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.
I don't know what "whole life" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.
maybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.
One's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body.
yes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.
I'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with "gift of life" point.
The point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.
This is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.
Now, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:
Imagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?
To draw out the analogy with abortion:
The initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.
The state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.
Unplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being.
You should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.
Now, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences."
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Whether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with."
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You clearly did not read the post | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function."
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My favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?
Personally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post"
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Yes I like it | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy."
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If ifs and buts were candy and nuts...
Also, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not "immoral" to get rid of you. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it"
] |
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You've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you."
] |
>
You've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument
No. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?
. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.
No one "put it there" it implanted. It is not a child. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping."
] |
>
If I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?
The essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.
People know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg.
Now, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child."
] |
>
If I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker?
No, you didn't.
Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?
Who do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?
The essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.
It's irrelevant, but not always no,
If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.
It's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post."
] |
>
No, you didn't.
For the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.
Who do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?
This one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest.
It feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.
Whether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this.
The moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.
It's irrelevant, but not always no,
If you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise.
It's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.
Right. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives.
As I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs."
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For the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.
If you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'
Right. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?
AGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.
all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument
It does not. It's ... irrelevant. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument"
] |
>
If you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'
I literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got.
AGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.
It does not. It's ... irrelevant.
It’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant."
] |
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By this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.
Having just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this."
] |
>
war is immoral
usually, but not always
death penalty is immoral
yep
killing animals for their meat is immoral
arguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.
Having just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.
hmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc."
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Do you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations."
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!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?"
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You are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here."
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yep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life."
] |
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Oh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually "yes, she should be able to choose" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful"
] |
>
Not a single state has laws banning IVF.
But in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.
That's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people.
It has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability."
] |
>
I'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.
But after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.
Personhood is irrelevant.
I'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else.
Now, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No.
If you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died.
We can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has.
NOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to.
So, the fetus doesn't have that right either. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex."
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Do you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either."
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did you even read the post? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?"
] |
>
No person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability.
Period.
Full stop. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?"
] |
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what if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop."
] |
>
Then we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?"
] |
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but that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world."
] |
>
For the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy.
Pregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that
that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy
A fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.
So even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem."
] |
>
again, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.
or just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her."
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If the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate"
] |
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If I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?"
] |
>
No
2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?
(please answer) | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?"
] |
>
no, if getting them out would kill them.
same answer as you :) | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)"
] |
>
The basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue "dies", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)"
] |
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you did not address the post. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body."
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How so? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post."
] |
>
you did not address the premise. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?"
] |
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In what way? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise."
] |
>
the premise is that a fetus is a person, not "tissue." | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?"
] |
>
That doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to "kill" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\""
] |
>
Are you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose."
] |
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The most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape
in my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?"
] |
>
I don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape."
] |
>
I'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.
Different analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.
We know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?
I say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged."
] |
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That’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another."
] |
>
I don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not "something done" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.
For many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof.
The drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?"
] |
>
Obviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.
It is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.
However, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:
u did not give them kidney disease
Even if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.
u are not the only one who can donate a kidney
Even if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney
u have a special obligation to ur own children
And it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.
A more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?
Would it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?
That is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.
But if you believe a fetus is a child
And here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy)."
] |
>
Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.
It also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body.
Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.
already gave delta for this.
Even if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.
well, then I believe you should.
Even if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney
true. it's just another compounding variable I added.
And it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.
yep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption
Would it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?
depending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.
they are rooted in subjective morality
everything is rooted in subjective morality
should give people option to decide according to their own morality
so... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?
in situations where there is no correct choice.
who decides which situations have "no correct choice?" oh wait... that decision is also subjective.
There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.
many things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis."
] |
>
It also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your
body.
Not really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.
well, then I believe you should.
Then you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.
yep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption
Because that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.
depending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.
How high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?
Who bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?
What about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?
And that is the other part of the issue - "I believe you should" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.
everything is rooted in subjective morality
And subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.
so... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?
Yes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.
Any action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.
many things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.
Do you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy "not a science"? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway."
] |
>
Because that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions
so if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?
A conscientious objector
and someone who is not will be forced to combat
and I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.
How high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?
idk
Who bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?
the parents
What about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?
hypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.
discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.
maybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.
I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.
who said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.
Do you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy "not a science"?
well if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?"
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so if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?
One has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.
and someone who is not will be forced to combat
Because they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.
and I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right
Yep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.
idk
But you are one to be sure to force it.
the parents
But the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?
hypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.
And cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?
Your point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.
maybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.
If your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?
who said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.
But that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.
Also if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements."
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Morality matters less to me than practicality.
In reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything.
If the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.
I think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo.
Maybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?"
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Morality matters less to me than practicality.
well, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.
a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades
that is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end."
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I stand firm in my view that the words "pro-life" and "anti-abortion" should be changed to be simply "pro-birth". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society."
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I would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.
Ideally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child.
You could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.
Finally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children."
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Updating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy.
The abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.
In every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'.
As a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: "We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating." | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it"
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I will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.
However abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone.
Add to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.
My point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\""
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I'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.
If it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging."
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Do you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently."
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That wasn't "God" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This "God" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap? | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?"
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"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?"
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"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there"
] |
>
Here, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.
Well let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy.
In my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",
">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards."
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Yeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",
">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",
">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child."
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In that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",
">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",
">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",
">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then"
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well I don't think there's much of a debate here then. The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",
">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",
">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",
">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then",
">\n\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep."
] |
>
The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid
yes, that is basically the title of my post. | [
"/u/Comfortable_Tart_297 (OP) has awarded 7 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\nI think it's worth reflection on what you're actually saying here. What does \"if the fetus was a fully fledged person\" actually mean? Does it make any sense to call something that has no capacity to exist outside a womb as \"fully fledged\"? But if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section as an alternative. But for that matter, are newborn babies even \"fully fledged people\"?\nI guess I'm trying to understand what you actually mean here without turning your view into a pointless tautology. Like, if you define \"fully fledged person\" as something that by definition should be saved, then of course you should save it, but I don't think you've really said anything.",
">\n\nhmm, since the pro-life position is usually comparative to a baby, I'd say \"fully-fledged\" should mean \"equivalent to a newborn infant in moral worth\"\n\nBut if the hypothetical is that the fetus is more fully developed than a real fetus, then that changes everything because you could probably just do a c section\n\nbut since it's a thought experiment, let's just say we can't. \nThis is a kind of circular reasoning on your part, no? The idea that only fully-fledged people can be delivered via c-section because fully-fledged people must be able to survive outside the womb.",
">\n\nI think about the organ donation more like this: say you were to get into a horrible car accident, you were 100% at fault no way around it. You and the person you hit were rushed to the hospital, they lost a lot of blood, the hospital didn’t have their blood type, you were the exact same blood type. Would it be okay for the government to FORCE you to give them your blood? Yeah you’d be rude not too, but should the government have the ability to tell that you HAVE to give your blood?",
">\n\nI think one should be allowed even if it weren't ones fault.\nPeople can be forced to pay taxes, have jury duty, have a duty to assist, conscription even, all for the common good, but not forced to donate blood to safe a life?\nIn particular, countries that have conscription, forcing persons to risk their lives in the interest of the state should have compulsory blood donation to safe a life. Being forced to donate some blood is very insignificant compared to conscription.",
">\n\nThe analogy that was most convincing to me was this:\nThere are thousands of people on transplant lists around the country/world. Many of them will die imminently without a transplant. Most of us could spare some parts of some organs. Should we have to give them to others? What if it has no lasting effect on our health? What if it does but that it’s mild? Very few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\nNow, many of those organs are still useable when you die. Should we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\nIf you believe a person should have autonomy over what happens to their body even AFTER death, despite the fact that taking away that autonomy would save the lives of others, then you cannot be anti-choice even if the fetus is a fully-fledged person from conception.",
">\n\n\nVery few people would support a scheme where people had to share organs with others.\n\nyep. but the distinction in my analogy is that u gave them the disease.\n\nShould we force everyone to, upon their deaths, donate all of the organs that remain in good working form to save the lives of others?\n\nABSOLUTELY",
">\n\nTo further your analogy with a more realistic and natural example, imagine you cause a car accident. Your fault and all that. The other person affected now requires some form of transplant or blood transfusion. Could any form of authority force you to give your blood/organs to this person just because it is your fault that they are in this situation?",
">\n\nBecause the next argument will be that the driver of the other car tacitly consented to this by driving, take it a step further and say that you injure an innocent child in the back seat of the other car who had no choice in being in the car or not.\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one? Of course not.",
">\n\n\nDo you owe the innocent child a blood transfusion because you caused it's injury and are the sole reason it requires one?\n\nyes. \n\nOf course not.\n\nwhy not?",
">\n\nBecause you have bodily autonomy, and it is a ridiculous restriction of your most basic right to force someone to give a part of themselves medically to another person for any reason. Show me anywhere on the planet where a person is legally obligated to do it, show me a respectable moral framework where they're morally obligated to do it. You can't because it isn't an obligation because your right to your body outweighs basically everything, your right to life, a random third parties right to life, your victim's right to life are all traditionally subsumed to your right to not have your blood and organs harvested without your consent.",
">\n\nBut assuming guilt is verifiable, bodily autonomy is absolutely restricted. And the more the person is \"at fault\", the more their bodily autonomy is restricted. It can be a fine, it can be removal of driver's license, it can be jail time, and it can be jail time that entails practically slavery (mostly, but not only, in the US).\nI think being forced to give blood or body parts is just another level somewhere in the middle, which society just doesn't do because it's not \"normal\" in our eyes, but I don't think it's less or more moral than life in prison when someone does verifiable harm.",
">\n\nOthers have mentioned the bodily autonomy issue, that it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else. However, I feel that we are getting the morality and legality issues confused.\nLegally speaking, it doesn't make sense to have laws against abortion even if the fetus is a person. This is because legally speaking, you are never required to give up your body for someone else's life. You never have to give blood or organs if you don't want to, even after you die! In any situation where someone would rely on your body for their own life, no matter who's \"fault\" it is or how you got into the situation, the law prioritizes bodily autonomy, except in conservative areas where they want to put down women.\nBut what about morally speaking? That's what this is really about. Morally speaking, it would be considered wrong and awful for someone to get really drunk and injure themself in an avoidable way and then take up a bed at the emergency room. However, we still treat them and try to save them anyways. Morality is very subjective. It would certainly be wrong to have unprotected sex and then use abortion as your form of birth control. But the question is how often does this really happen? How often do women have abortions willy-nilly without considering the consequences? The answer is never. An abortion is a traumatic surgery physically and psychologically. And I think that's a piece missing from the conservative argument that abortions are wrong because they end human life. You can't divorce the theory from the reality, which is that abortion is expensive, rare, and traumatic.\nSo you can argue about the theoretical and about how taking a life is wrong, but you are ignoring the real experiences of women in society. You're not thinking about the many factors they take into account before deciding to go through with it. You're trying to make a blanket statement basically about what is right and wrong without the nuance of the real cases and real stakes. And when morality is so subjective, I think it's generally a mistake to think in absolutes when it's such a controversial issue. So if I could change your view just a bit, I'd hope to make you rethink the absolutes and realize that morality isn't great at making such blanket statements. Even if you say \"cold blooded murder is wrong\" I can come up with examples of when it might be morally justified. Clearly, the same would be true for abortion.",
">\n\n\nthat it doesn't make sense to require someone give up part of their body for someone else.\n\nWhy not? You think the 45 states that limit abortions after the 3rd trimester need to change those laws?",
">\n\nNow, I feel that you are having trouble pursuing arguments on morality because (1) your arguments are too reductive, and (2) you are struggling to bridge the gap between what you feel are intuitively (im)moral, and what established principles say is immoral.\nNow, let me go through with you a couple of ethical theories that can perhaps help you better articulate the standards for morality. Because our \"what is intuitively moral\" is varied, unreliable, and often fail to resolve deliberate examples (or puzzles)\nDeontology says that you do \"what is right in the moment\". This usually means that we establish some inviolable rules and principles to act upon. In this aspect, we can for example, say that murder is wrong, because killing someone (ending an existence) in itself is wrong (even if it may lead to better outcomes in the end) and so we shouldn't commit murder. You say that \"no rights are absolute\", but that might not be true under some deontological views - rights may be absolute, as long as they are not in contention with other rights.\n(Act) Utilitarianism says that you should \"maximise satisfaction (or happiness)\" of everyone (or more commonly known as \"the end justifies the means\"). The famous utilitarian example is the trolley problem (diverting a travelling trolley to kill 1 person instead of 3), but here is an alternative example that is more relevant. Under utilitarianism, if five people in an hospital need different organs for a transplant, you can (theoretically) take someone in the hospital and give their relevant organs to the dying patients (assuming compatibility, of course). Needless to say, this hospital example doesn't really fly under any deontological theory.\nBut act utilitarianism also runs into problems - if you could walk in a hospital, and be randomly chosen to be killed for the sake of other people, no one would go to the hospital anymore! Rule utilitarianism comes in here - which says that we should establish rules to follow that give the maximum happiness to everyone.\nNow, you can see how both deontology and rule utilitarianism are valid, similar in that we establish inviolable rules to follow (and similar enough to be confused in the debates of right to life vs bodily autonomy), but they can be valid to different people.\nFrom my view, the pro-life view is strongly related to deontology, and pro-choice view towards act utilitarianism. The pro-life view may arise from some deontological theory that champions the right to life above all others (the most 'absolute' right of them all, whichever origins it come from), and so it is immoral to violate this right, even if it is for the sake of other 'rights'.\nThe pro-choice view is strongly related to rule utilitarianism, and might come from some rule-utilitarian view, where the right to bodily autonomy is (one of) the most important. After all, if you could be forced to do things against your will in a hospital, no one would go to a hospital, and this stance in the abortion debate is a mere consequence of this view that champions bodily autonomy.\nI cannot convince you that both views are valid, and we subscribe to each view, perhaps based on our moral intuition. I don't think this is a debate of rights, IMO this is a conflict of moral theories masquerading as a discussion of rights.\nI can also comment on the vaccination policy in another thread with respect to rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism (in my view) does not support mandatory vaccination policies, but you can bet that it protects others' ability (or autonomy) to protect oneself from catching COVID, and \"being shunned for being unvaccinated\" is also a consequence of that.",
">\n\nWouldn't the pro-choice position also fall into deontology? Just, instead of championing the right to life, it champions the right to bodily autonomy? (in the case where the fetus is prescribed personhood) \nIf we agree that both are based mostly or purely on personal intuitions, why put them into different buckets? \nAlso, if the core differences on this topic stem from personal moral intuitions, its seems reasonable for that to be the position from which people argue about it. Even if it results in mostly people talking past each other.",
">\n\n\nThe only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nThis analogy is a bit silly, because it unnecessarily involves \"magical\" technology. The more natural analogy is to say that the blood transfusions are just ordinary blood transfusions, or to specify that the baby must remain physically connected to you for nine months.\nBut regardless, the obvious answer to this hypothetical is: yes, of course. The inalienable right to bodily autonomy means that you're never morally obligated to do something like this. Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else. (In particular, since this right is inalienable, you can't lose it through your own actions. Your choice to have sex can't have the effect of alienating you from your right to bodily autonomy.) So even as stated, your analogy doesn't seem to prove what you want it to prove.",
">\n\nIt sounds like you believe bodily autonomy trumps the right to life, no matter what. I’m curious if maybe some of the following hypotheticals would change your mind.\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free? \nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\nThe level of inconvenience matters in my opinion. Pregnancy is a massive inconvenience. Also, if a child were 1000 yards away drowning, I can’t be expected to swim out there to save them. \nPersonally, I am prochoice but I do not believe bodily autonomy should trump the right to life in all circumstances. I believe in most circumstances, the right to life trump’s bodily autonomy. As do most people.\nThe vast majority of people are against 9 month abortions for the purpose of convenience. Luckily, those types of abortions are super rare anyway.",
">\n\n\nWhat if the transfusion only had 5 minutes left, and the person wasn’t just a violinist, but a doctor who you knew saved lives on the reg?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to continue the transfusion.\n\nWhat if pregnancy itself only lasted 1 day and was pain free?\n\nYou have no moral obligation to allow your body to undergo this process. Note that this doesn't mean that you necessarily have a right to kill the fetus: you have a right not to undergo the pregnancy process if you don't want to, and you have a right to medical care that stops that process in the most expedient and safe way possible.\n\nWhat if you were walking next to a swimming pool and noticed a 2 year old fall in, would it be morally wrong to exercise your right to bodily autonomy and just keep walking? Or is there some level of moral obligation to reach over and pull the child out of the pool?\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.",
">\n\n\nThis doesn't touch on the right to bodily autonomy at all, since it's not interfering with the integrity of your body, not taking away or changing the function of any of its parts. So you do have some level of moral obligation here.\n\nOf course this is an issue of bodily autonomy. By stating that there is a moral obligation to save the child, this places limitations on what one can do with their body. \nYour initial post stated \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else\" in the case of blood transfusions. We can say something similar in the case of the child drowning. In fact, we can imagine the child needs to climb up your body to get out of the pool for whatever reason. You could also respond with \"Your body is your body: you can't be morally obligated to give it to someone else.\"\nNow, you say something about bodily integrity, but that is just a restatement of bodily autonomy, so it gets us nowhere. You then say the drowning child does not take away or change the function of any of your parts.\nBut this is not true. Just as blood transfusion changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. function of your blood), helping a child changes the function of some of your parts (i.e. the function of your limbs, possibly your heart rate, your brain as it needs to form new intentional states, etc.).",
">\n\nThis is very silly. A child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body; I am just using it to get the child out of the pool. Nor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function.",
">\n\n\nA child climbing up my body to get out of a pool is not in any sense giving my body to someone else. It's still my body;\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body. This also applies during pregnancy. \n\nNor does it change the function of my body: changing its state does not change its function. \n\nNot sure what this distinction is supposed to be getting at. But I addressed function in the last paragraph.",
">\n\n\nOf course, it's still your body. But the child is using it, which means you gave the child your body.\n\nNo? Allowing someone else to use something it not at all the same as giving them that thing.",
">\n\nWhat's the morally relevant difference?",
">\n\nThe difference is that if I use my arm to pull a child out of a pool, it's still my arm the whole time, and it continues to be my arm after I pull the child out. Conversely, if I give blood to a child with leukemia, it's no longer my blood.",
">\n\nSo you think bodily autonomy is violated only if you permanently lose bodily tissue?\nTwo questions:\n\nIf I rape someone without permanently taking away any of their bodily tissue, is that not a violation of bodily autonomy?\nLet's say that we know that if you try to save the drowning child in the pool, you will scrap your knee, resulting in a small loss of blood. Now, would you say that there is no obligation to save the drowning child, because this violates your bodily autonomy?",
">\n\nAnother aspect people don't want to talk about is that life at different stages has different relative values. If the woman is likely to die if she carried the fetus to term, while the fetus had a good chance of surviving; most (so-called) pro-life would allow the abortion. This implies that the woman who likely has more friends, and family that knows her, loves her, values her presence, investment society has made in her education and skills, etc, etc. means she is more valuable than the fetus. \npeople don't like to talk about this and/or try to pretend like it doesn't exist but they all would choose the woman or fetus when presented with this scenario so that confirms the two different lives have a different value than each other.\nfor the few people who would choose the fetus or let nature take its course; I imagine this comes from either sexism and/or religion. For some religions (christian-science) medical treatment is going against gods-will. For others (Muslims, some extreme Christain secs) women are less valuable and easily replaceable; mostly just breeding stock and taking care of the house as a side task since they are too cheap/poor to hire maids. Maybe some just really like babies over adults but I fail to understand how this is rational without the religious aspect \nNow that we got that out the way, we all agree that life at different stages has different values, how much do value that woman's ability to make her own choices in life for her happiness, economic situation, etc, vs the fetus who is only known to the woman as even existing?",
">\n\nThere's a step you jumped, I think, which is worth pointing out. It sounds like you're equating moral badness with illegality when you make the kidney comparison, but they're not one-to-one. There's things that are immoral which are still important for us to protect legally.\nYou say the government shouldn't force kidney donations. But morally, do you think a person should donate their kidney if they're the only viable match? What about donating their bone marrow, which is much less invasive? Would you feel guilty if you didn't donate? The truth is that someone will die and you could have stopped it. That would weigh on me. I would feel like I did a bad thing.",
">\n\nhmmm !delta I actually do think I would feel guilty. Maybe logically the law should mandate that sort of thing. But really, there's just something icky about a mandate like that. I guess that's just my intuition speaking.",
">\n\nThe problem with a mandate is that some people would really be harmed by having to donate. Mostly for medical reasons, but in the case of surgery some would have other reasons as well, like not being able to afford to take time off while they recover or to pay for doctor visits for any potential complications. We could -- we would -- have ways for people to appeal it if they were called to donate. But donations like these are time sensitive, and there's not always enough time for people to go through the process of proving they would be unduly harmed.\nA mandate would hurt people. And the people it would hurt would be the people who are already struggling, with disabilities or financial instability. It's not fair.",
">\n\nLet's say a woman consented to sex, but took every legal possible way to prevent pregnancy that was available to her. She becomes pregnant. Are you saying that forcing her to carry and bear a child she does not want, that is feeding off of her without her consent, and medically affecting her body should be allowed because it got past all security measures to do so?\n\nu should bite the bullet.\n\nWhy? Why would you force someone to give birth, knowing that the child is not wanted, and would probably be hated/not given a proper life? Our foster care system is already overloaded, and adoption is inherently traumatic. Why force the child to suffer?",
">\n\nHonestly OP just read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.” She starts with the premise that a fetus is a person with a right to life. The conclusion is that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes another’s right to life.",
">\n\nIf we accept the premise of your hypothetical for the sake of the discussion, you have to also accept that you are actively valuing one life above another (the fetus above the pregnant person). You are saying that it is LESS immoral to force catastrophic and potentially life-ruining experiences on the pregnant person (nevermind the fact that birth does not necessarily equate a positive quality of life for the fetus either!) than it would be to terminate the pregnancy. It becomes a battle of morals (i.e. whose life is more valuable?). In this hypothetical, I would throw my lot in with pregnant people as having more intrinsic value than the fetuses, by virtue of their established ties to existence and thus their greater impact. The fetuses, pre-birth, can only have THEORETICAL impacts, and therefore have a lesser value at the time of the abortion. \nI'm not always great with words, so allow me to explain with my lived experience:\nWhen I was pregnant with my (very much wanted) second baby, there was a risk of a uterine rupture. Uterine ruptures can be fatal to the mother and/or the baby, and incredibly time sensitive surgical interventions are needed (as in minutes can change the outcome from life to death). I had to have a very scary and very real conversation with my husband about who to save if God forbid it came down to it, and at this point I was 37 weeks along so I had a fully formed baby in me, not just a clump of cells. The fact of the matter is that had it come down to me or my baby, my loss would have created a direct, measurable and guaranteed impact on those around me. In our case, our biggest concern was what would happen to our existing child who was still a toddler and needed me. Was it immoral to choose myself over my baby if it came down to it? Tragic, yes, but immoral? I don't think it was. \n(Full disclosure, baby was born healthy and all is good, so I'm grateful that our scary scenario was only ever a hypothetical for us because for some people it isn't!)",
">\n\nNo, you wouldn’t put one life above the other if you carry the child. Instead, you give the child equal value to the mother. However, an abortion would mean not giving any value to that Fetus. It’s not just worth less than the mother, it’s worth nothing. \nI understand the way you see it. The mother has to carry the consequences of the pregnancy to bring the child to term. She loses on that deal if she doesn’t want to keep the child. But At the end of the day, none of these sometimes awful consequences can justify murdering a human being. That’s why the whole abortion argument (in my opinion) solely depends on whether or not the Fetus is a human being with a right to live.",
">\n\nand that is a true statement. same as the post.",
">\n\nIf a fetus were actually a fully-fledged person, the woman it's assaulting could legally remove it in self-defense.",
">\n\nWhat a shit take.",
">\n\nWhy? Explain",
">\n\nI'm not even sure if I can explain why your take is terrible, if you're being serious of course, which if you are then you're most likely beyond saving and too far deep in your demented little world.\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb. The fetus is being built while the mother cares for it, unless there is some sort of disorder, in a normal pregnancy the mother is in no way being \"assaulted\". Pregnancy is a form of commensalism. The mother protects the baby and does whatever she can to make it come out healthy. The fetus just stays inside and receives the nutrients from it's mother. Simple science.\nI've heard a lot of reasons for abortion, but this one definitely takes the spot for \"Most concerning\" reason.",
">\n\n\nA fetus in no way harms it's mother when inside the womb.\n\nYes or no question: is it Your View that all these women are lying?",
">\n\n\nBuzzfeed\nPerfectly normal things that happen during a pregnancy, none of which are perpetrated by the baby in question\n\nNo offense, but did you honestly think that pregnancy is easy? I don't think that anyone who has had children has ever said it was easy.",
">\n\n\ndid you honestly think that pregnancy is easy?\n\nNo. Did you think I did?",
">\n\nYou yourself don't even think pregnancy is easy, even though I doubt you even had one. Also I've talked to my mom before who has had 4 children including me and the way she described it was similar to the buzzfeed article you responded with. Everything has side effects and those are the side effects. I've even gotten to hear from some of her friends who are mothers and they told me \"It's difficult\".\nSpeaking of which, is the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing? If you answered yes then you're anti birth. Period.",
">\n\n\nis the act of giving birth considered assault even though it is a totally normal thing?\n\nNo, if she's giving birth with her consent.\nYes, if she's giving birth without her consent. If it's against the woman's consent, any act involving another person touching her genitals is assault. Do you agree?\n\nIf you answered yes then you're anti birth.\n\nI've never heard this term. Describe what makes someone \"anti birth\".",
">\n\nWhy do you have a special obligation to your own children? Let's say instead of your child getting leukemia, it is some random person in the world. Are you obliged to spend 9 months giving blood transfusions in that case?",
">\n\nTry having children and then not taking care of them, see what happens to you.",
">\n\nThe way I think about it is this, should the government be able to force people to give up bodily autonomy to save people? In the original Violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson the point is that a person cannot be morally forced to save someone if it violates their autonomy. If it was the case that taking away bodily autonomy is less important than saving lives then why would it be immoral for doctors to kidnap people and steal their organs or fluids? \nBut of course you already object to this in your initial statement, my prefered analogy is a car accident, let's say you are in a horrific car accident. It was your fault but you didn't do anything illegal and will not be charged with reckless driving or anything of the sort. You miraculously survive unharmed but the other driver is put into a coma. You wake up in the hospital and the doctor has set up a machine to give the injured driver your blood. The doctor explains that you must be hooked up to this man for 9 months or else he will die instantly, in his sleep. The question is should you be forced to give blood to this man for 9 months? If you think that you should be forced to, then what if you must be attached for 20 years? Surely it should not be seen as evil to say \"no\" and leave? \nNo human should be just a vessel for keep another alive unless both parties are consenting. The implications of treating humans as vessels to keep others alive is awful. Look at how women have been dehumanised in the past, seen only as vessels of creating children.",
">\n\nThat a fetus is a human being is mostly a Christian belief. Forcing this opinion upon others violates the first ammendment regarding religious freedom. Several state courts have already struct down abortion bans based upon this. If it's a personal moral question, that belongs to the individual, not the state.",
">\n\nAre you then obligated to run into a burning building to try to save anyone inside of you are the only person around? If someone points a gun at someone else, are you morally obligated to jump in the way? I have mild but permanent nerve damage from my first pregnancy. I still have mild incontinence issues despite physical therapy. I almost died during my last pregnancy, and it's not that uncommon. So let's be clear on what you are asking of people. It is not just a mild inconvenience for 9 months. You are asking them to risk death or permanent disability.",
">\n\nWe don’t force organ donors even if it is the only match, even if it’s intentional (munchenhausens by proxy) even if it’s family EVEN IF THEY WILL DIE IF YOU DONT, we would never even think of forcing someone to, for nine months, be a life support machine to a fully grown human, because we have the right to our own bodies correct? The circumstances don’t matter, because regardless of the situation at hand, it’s immoral asf to pressure someone into donating anything, even blood. it’s not killing, it’s pulling the plug on someone who cannot support themselves.",
">\n\n\na fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nThere's more than the issue of bodily autonomy here. Let's focus on the issue of moral vs immoral.\nIf a fetus is a person (it's not, but this is a thought exercise, right?), then abortion is homicide. However, there are examples of moral homicide (in defense of others), even legal homicide (capital punishment).\nSo - can killing a fetus be moral homicide?\nYou've already agreed the answer is yes (in defense of the mother's life). Therefore, can you change your mind to accept that there may be other scenarios of moral homicide?\nOne example that comes to my mind is the baby's health. If the baby develops without sufficient lungs such that to take it to term and give birth would force the baby to gasp for air, painfully and loudly dying over the course of an hour - would an abortion not be considered morally just?\nWhat about a pregnancy that, though viable, if forced to continue would risk the mother's womb? Not her life, but the ability to bear future children. If this potential child has a right to life, but about the potential children she planned to have, but now can't?\nOr how about twins that fail to separate, developing to share a heart - but one heart can't sustain two bodies so as they get bigger, the heart works so much harder that they have an 80% chance of being dead by age 8 with a significantly lower quality of life until then?\nSo then the question becomes: should the burden be on the law to assess every request for an abortion and have a judge decide if it would be a moral homicide (overtaxing the judicial system and treating abortion providers/seekers like potential murderers)...OR basing law on the belief that women aren't committing homicide or if they are that it's for a damn good reason, a reason which those of us not directly involved have no business asking them to justify?",
">\n\nSo how many attempted murder charges does my vasectomy get me in your philosophical world?",
">\n\nNone, since a sperm is not a fetus.",
">\n\nOk... so you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\" as the dividing line for saying \"it's a human\". Your dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's. \nTechnically, because of the way they work, with this belief system of yours... birth control pills are actually killing millions (maybe hundreds of millions... impossible to tell really) of your definition of \"human\" each year. I guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.",
">\n\n\nso you've chosen the \"sperm enters egg cell and one cell becomes two\"\n\nno, I haven't... that's just the most common pro-life premise, which I am holding as true for the sake of an independent thought experiment.\n\nYour dividing line is your own but also as arbitrary as anyone else's.\n\nwe're not talking about my dividing line.\n\nI guess that should be quite an existential crisis for you to wrap your head around.\n\nhardly. zygotes are not babies.",
">\n\nYour \"independent thought experiment\" is flawed right off the bat as \"morality\" is not some yes or no, one or zero calculation but instead is a highly fluid system of beliefs and differs greatly from group to group. Killing a human for whatever reason can be \"moral\" and \"justified\" by groups or societies and has been since the birth of humanity.",
">\n\nall morality is subjective. does that mean all discussions of morality are pointless? lmao. why are you even here if you believe in subjectivism? if you are really a subjectivist, then there is no moral difference between pro-life, pro-choice, racism, or anything else since all morality is fluid.",
">\n\nDude or Dudette you are on a worldwide forum and refuse to adopt a cultural point of reference for us to try to understand *your* definition of \"morality\" or \"immorality\" so... we're all stuck until then.",
">\n\nfair enough, my argument is mostly intuitive after all. perhaps you can provide a moral framework that conflicts with my view and explain why I should follow it.",
">\n\nThe best I got is the golden rule ... and using that I will always side with the female and her choice as being the \"moral\" decision.",
">\n\nwell... if a fetus is a person....\nthen wouldn't the golden rule also apply to the fetus???",
">\n\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons:\n\n\nu did not give them kidney disease\n\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney (if u see a child drowning u ought to help them if ur the only one (or few) around)\n\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children (u don't have to save starving kids in Africa, but you do have to feed ur own).\n\n\n\nWe can modify the hypothetical to meet these concerns easily.\nTo meet the second two concerns, imagine that a child needs a kidney from his parent in order to survive. Should the parent be forced to donate the kidney? No.\nFor the first concern, I take it that this is concerned with the fact that most women are responsible for their pregnancy. The question is whether most women are responsible in the relevant sense. It is true that a pregnant woman is causally responsible for the pregnancy (outside of cases of rape). But I deny that she is responsible in the relevant sense, i.e. the sense that would grant the fetus the right to use her body.\nWhat do I mean by “in the relevant sense”? Typically, to say that an action makes an agent responsible for a victim’s needy circumstances implies that, if not for the agent’s action, the victim would have continued their life without being in those needy circumstances. In these cases, if the agent does not compensate the victim for their action, then they would have deprived the victim of something of value. Therefore, in these cases, it is plausible to hold an agent responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. grant the victim a right to compensation from the agent) as a means to minimize the deprivation of the victim.\nTo express this formally, we can say the following:\nLet's say that agent A does act X which results in person B being in a needy condition. X grants B the right to compensation by A only if X deprives B of something that he would have had absent X.\nThis explains why there should be compensation for property damage; if I damage your property, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. This also explains why there should be compensation for bodily harm; if I physically assault you, then I deprive you of something that you would have had absent my action. In both of these cases, I perform an action that results in you being deprived of something that you would have otherwise had. I should be held responsible in the relevant sense (i.e. the victim has a right to compensation by me) as a means to minimize your deprivation.\nHowever, similar reasoning does not apply to pregnancy. In the case of pregnancy, the relevant action by the mother is the conception of the fetus through voluntary sex (this is supposed to be the act that grants the fetus the right to use her body). But the fetus would not have had any life without this act. Thus, if a woman conceives a fetus and then aborts it, these actions do not deprive the fetus of anything that it would have had absent those actions. Therefore, forcing the woman to allow the fetus to use her body does not aid in minimizing the deprivation of the fetus. So her action does not grant the fetus the right to use her body.",
">\n\nThat makes sense if you look at it from a \"depriving them of something positive\" perspective, but what if you consider harming a negative in and of itself? Most people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.",
">\n\n\nMost people would say that never being conceived is preferable to be born and then killed, even if the end result is the same and the net \"deprivation\" is zero.\n\nUnless you're an anti-natalist, I'm not sure why anyone would say that. Everyone who has ever lived has been born and died. Does this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\nThis kind of reads in a way where conception is giving a \"gift of life\" which gives the parent the right to take it away, but I don't think that's the case.\n\nThat's not the argument I'm making. I'm not saying that parents have the right to kill their children. I'm saying that the act of voluntary sex itself does not grant the fetus the right to the woman's body. The point is narrow: if the fetus does not have the right to the woman's body in the case of rape (which you grant), then the fetus also not have the right in the case of voluntary intercourse. The fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\nThis does not imply that parents have the right to kill their children. Presumably you think parents do not have the right to kill their children for other reasons, for reasons that have nothing to do with the voluntariness of conception. E.g. a parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\nMy argument is only to deny the morally relevant difference between pregnancies due to rape and pregnancies due to voluntary intercourse (because there's no deprivation in both cases). It is not a general argument about when one can kill people.",
">\n\n\nDoes this mean that, for everyone who ever lived, it was preferable that they were never born?\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience. \n\nThe fact that the pregnancy is the result of voluntary sex is not a morally relevant distinction because the voluntary sex does not deprive the fetus of anything.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman. \n\na parent should not have the right to kill their children even if it was the result of rape.\n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.",
">\n\n\npresumably not, because they had a whole life to experience.\n\nI don't know what \"whole life\" is supposed to mean. People live for different periods of time. It seems like you're saying there is some magical threshold of time such that if a person does not live beyond that threshold, it is better for them to not have been born. But I'm not sure what the motivation for that is supposed to be.\n\nmaybe not the fetus, but it completely denies the agency of the woman.\n\nOne's agency is morally relevant (in the sense that would justify reducing their autonomy) only if someone else is harmed in the process. Exercising agency without depriving you of anything cannot grant you a right to use my body. \n\nyes, but they should be allowed to exercise bodily autonomy even if the rape child dies.\n\nI'm talking about after birth, since presumably that's what you were getting at with \"gift of life\" point.\n\nThe point is that voluntary conception is tacit consent/responsibility to consequences. It's akin to throwing bricks off a bridge: sure it may be fun, but if you hit someone you have to reap the consequences.\n\nThis is not incompatible with my argument. One of the consequences of pregnancy is abortion. So I agree that voluntary conception is tacit consent to consequences. It's a tacit consent to abortion or pregnancy.\nNow, you want to argue that abortion should not be an available consequence of voluntary conception. For example, if you throw bricks of a bridge, one of the available consequences should not be to walk away like nothing happened. And that's true. But that's because if you walk away like nothing happened, then you have deprived someone victim of something of value. This does not apply to abortion. If my act does not deprive someone of anything, then I should not be forced to suffer the consequence of caring for them. This is the case even if your act is responsible for their life. Consider the following case:\n\nImagine that your infant son has a fatal kidney ailment through no fault of your own. He requires a series of blood transfusions in order to live which requires you to remain connected to him for the next nine months. If you do not connect immediately, he will die within an hour. You voluntarily decide to connect and commence the transfusions. Several days pass. Should you be legally allowed to unplug after you have voluntarily connected?\n\nTo draw out the analogy with abortion:\n\nThe initial connection is like conception. The agent did an act that caused the needy being to be alive and dependent on the agent's body.\nThe state of dependency is like pregnancy. There is a being dependent on your body.\nUnplugging is like abortion. Doing so is necessary to secure bodily control but would result in the death of the needy being. \n\nYou should absolutely be allowed to unplug in this case (assuming that you were allowed to not connect in the first place). The fact that you initially connected does not imply that you must remain connected. This is because, if you had never connected in the first place, the kid wouldn't even be alive, so you aren't depriving the infant of anything by unplugging. Therefore, if you should be permitted to unplug if you were forcibly connected, then you should be permitted to unplug if you voluntarily connected.\nNow, there might be other reasons to say that you should remain connected. For example, imagine that your son's kidney ailment was the result of abuse. In such a case, perhaps you should remain connected. But the fact that you should remain connected in this case has nothing to do with the fact that you initially connected. You should remain connected because you would otherwise deprive the kid of a life that he would have otherwise had. Thus, you should remain connected in this case even if you were forcibly connected to begin with.",
">\n\nWhether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. For example, a person in kidney failure has no right to demand another person let them hook up their blood vessels to share kidney function.",
">\n\nYou clearly did not read the post",
">\n\nMy favorite analogy is actually more like this: assume you were drunk driving, which you know has risks, and you get into a car crash. During the car crash you injure another driver. You are completely fine. Let’s assume the damage is (just for the sake of argument) their kidney and will die without a transplant. While you’re both checked into the hospital they do blood work and happen to find out that you’d be a match for a kidney transplant. So a few questions arise: should you give the kidney? As in, would it be wrong for you to decline giving the kidney? What if it would do you no harm? What if it would be a serious medical burden and might kill you? Another is: should you be forced to give the kidney?\nPersonally I think you should give the kidney no matter what because you’re at fault. But I also don’t think the government should get to make that determination. Some people would say you shouldn’t even feel morally obligated to give the kidney (regardless of government intervention). I disagree and that’s where my stance comes from. But I think this is the most valid analogy.",
">\n\nYes I like it",
">\n\nIf ifs and buts were candy and nuts...\nAlso, NO, it wouldn't, because if you take up unwanted residence in someone else's abdomen, pretty sure it's not \"immoral\" to get rid of you.",
">\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.",
">\n\n\nYou've ignored the post and strawmanned the argument\n\nNo. Why has 'strawman' become the new 'gaslighting' and 'pedophilia' where no one seems to know what it means but they use it endlessly regardless?\n\n. The child didn't enter itself into the residence. You put it there. It's the equivalent to kidnapping.\n\nNo one \"put it there\" it implanted. It is not a child.",
">\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? Would you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\nPeople know PiV intercourse can result in pregnancy and, except in the case of assault, consent to (and hopefully enthusiastically enjoy) a process that, despite contraceptives, can result in fertilization of an egg. \nNow, because I don’t believe that fertilized egg is a person, I’m pro-choice. If I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.",
">\n\n\nIf I go to the doctor and ask to put a pacemaker in, did I not implant that pacemaker? \n\nNo, you didn't. \n\nWould you think it was a sane argument if I were to then say that I didn’t put it there, the doctor implanted it, and so I’m not responsible?\n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThe essence of the discussion is clearly and obviously whether you’re responsible for the fetus or pacemaker being inside your body, and the answer is just as obviously: yes.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf I believed the fertilized egg was a baby and a person, that’s an entirely different viewpoint and the point of this post.\n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.",
">\n\n\nNo, you didn't.\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible. \n\nWho do you sue if it causes problems? Yourself or the manuf, doctor, hospital?\n\nThis one is weird. You’d only be able to sue for a defect in the work that you asked to have done, because that portion was out of your control. You clearly could not sue anyone just for having the pacemaker because you somehow believe you’re not responsible for it being in your chest. \nIt feels like your trying to use language to skirt around an obvious truth: if you’re an adult and willingly have sex, you’re solely responsible for pregnancy.\nWhether that pregnancy is wanted or not, the fetus is clearly just an innocent in all this. \nThe moral question, as OP stated, is whether or not that fetus is a person or just a clump of cells.\n\nIt's irrelevant, but not always no,\n\nIf you’re talking about assault/rape, I agree that it isn’t relevant to this particular part of the argument because obviously you can’t be responsible for something you didn’t consent to. No one is arguing otherwise. \n\nIt's often not. I know plenty of people who are religious, or who would never, ever abort, who think it's a life, etc. They're all pro choice, because they're adults able to separate their beliefs from the idea of forcing someone ELSE to adhere to those beliefs.\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there? If so, it’s not exactly insane to say you don’t want society allowing anyone to kill that fetus, who they are responsible for putting there, regardless of how it impacts their lives. \nAs I said I’m pro-choice, but all it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument",
">\n\n\nFor the purpose/essence of this discussion, which is about responsibility as I said below, you are 100% responsible for the implanting of that pacemaker being in your chest. To talk about who put it there with their hands is not relevant to the discussion because that doesn’t change who is responsible.\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nRight. That’s the point we’re discussing now. Is this a live person in there?\n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT. \n\nall it takes is imagining that a fertilized egg is the same as a child to see the moral argument\n\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant.",
">\n\n\nIf you ask a question and get an answer you don't like or weren't expecting, the response is not 'well no, you actually think....'\n\nI literally don’t know what this means. It’s definitely English, but it doesn’t seem to relate back to what I said in any way I can discern. Are you trying to say that suing the doctor for a perfectly working pacemaker you asked to be put in your body is reasonable? Or maybe you’re saying that… actually that’s all I got. \n\nAGAIN, not the point at all. It is IRRELEVANT.\nIt does not. It's ... irrelevant. \n\nIt’s not only relevant, it’s what the whole discussion hinges on. The only way it couldn’t be relevant is if you’re actually saying that what people who find that of the utmost importance don’t matter, and should be ignored because you’re right about this.",
">\n\nBy this same token, war is immoral, death penalty is immoral, killing animals for their meat is immoral. The line has to be drawn somewhere so don’t get hung up on it and keep in your pro-choice convictions.\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.",
">\n\n\nwar is immoral\n\nusually, but not always\n\ndeath penalty is immoral\n\nyep\n\nkilling animals for their meat is immoral\n\narguably, but animals are not humans, so logical consistency can be retained.\n\nHaving just had a baby myself, it is the most life changing and demanding experience; something no one could have prepared me for. Only the future mother of that baby has the right to decide if she’s up for the challenge; has the right support and backup, financial stability, etc.\n\nhmmm, honestly this util argument is something I need to consider. Society and the financial (and thus material) wellbeing of the family are important factors here. !delta for showing me these other considerations.",
">\n\nDo you think it is moral to kill 20 second old baby, because the billion dollar woman found out FTX collapsed and is now worth 0?",
">\n\n!delta for explaining how this util argument is flawed. wow, I'm really flip-flopping here.",
">\n\nYou are absolutely correct. If you accept that fetus is a person or the life at conception argument, there is no way to morally justify abortion, unless some exceptions (rape, threatened life of mother, etc). The main battle therefore is whether fetus is indeed a person. Pro life think it is, pro choice think it isn't or are coping really hard with these types of examples of comfort, which don't apply to any other aspect of life.",
">\n\nyep, thanks for the example, that was really powerful",
">\n\nOh, and also, you have to ask if it is moral for a woman with enough money and a husband to have an abortion if she doesn't want the baby (maybe because she doesn't feel like she is ready to be a mother), to which the answer is usually \"yes, she should be able to choose\" anyways, which shows you they don't care about the finances or stability.",
">\n\nNot a single state has laws banning IVF. \nBut in every single state, there is nothing stopping you from chucking your unwanted frozen embryos in the trash.\nThat's because the pro-life movement does not actually see things blobs of cells as people. \nIt has always been about controlling women's bodies and sex.",
">\n\n\nI'm pro-choice, mainly because I believe a fetus is not a person. Hence, a woman's bodily autonomy is the only thing that matters and abortion should be totally legal, at least for the first two trimesters.\nBut after trying to understand the pro-life position, I can't shake off the idea that if you were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person just like any other child, then abortion in cases where the mother's life is not at risk is immoral.\n\nPersonhood is irrelevant. \nI'm happy to concede from the instant of conception that a fetus is alive, human, and a person, with all the same rights as everyone else. \nNow, do I have a right to use your body to keep me alive against your will? No. \nIf you refuse to use your body to keep me alive, did you murder me? No. I just died. \nWe can grant the fetus all the same rights everyone else has. \nNOBODY, anywhere, at any time has the right to use another person's body to sustain their own live against the will of the person they are attached to. \nSo, the fetus doesn't have that right either.",
">\n\nDo you believe the government should have the right to force someone to donate a kidney if it will save the life of another?",
">\n\ndid you even read the post?",
">\n\nNo person has the right to use your body without your explicit and continued consent. No matter their age or viability. \nPeriod. \nFull stop.",
">\n\nwhat if you were the one who shoved them into your body against their consent?",
">\n\nThen we would be in a Looney Tunes cartoon and the abortion debate would be irrelevant in our wacky slapstick animated world.",
">\n\nbut that's exactly what happens in a pregnancy... by having sex, the fetus in created and forced into dependency without their consent. and if you believe a fetus is a person, that's an obvious problem.",
">\n\nFor the purposes of your CMV, we are all accepting that a fetus is a person. But you are grossly misunderstanding pregnancy. \nPregnancy isn't caused by a woman shoving a person into her body, despite your claim that \n\nthat's exactly what happens in a pregnancy\n\nA fetus isn't inside the woman until 10 weeks into her pregnancy.\nSo even by the rules you've established in your CMV -- rules which we're all playing along with -- a pregnant woman who is a month or two into her pregnancy does not have a person inside her.",
">\n\nagain, same difference. through your actions, fertilization, and subsequent development of the embryo, you materialize a person against their consent inside your body.\nor just replace the word fetus with zygote and you get the same debate",
">\n\nIf the person is inside the women against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nIf I kidnap you and put you on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean against your consent, we need to dump you overboard immediately. Agreed?",
">\n\nNo\n2nd time, if a person is inside a woman against their consent, we need to get that person out of her immediately. Agreed?\n(please answer)",
">\n\nno, if getting them out would kill them.\nsame answer as you :)",
">\n\nThe basic nature of an abortion is removing the tissue from the body that might develop into a baby. The tissue \"dies\", for lack of a better word, because it is no longer part of the host body. It's not immoral to remove something from your own body.",
">\n\nyou did not address the post.",
">\n\nHow so?",
">\n\nyou did not address the premise.",
">\n\nIn what way?",
">\n\nthe premise is that a fetus is a person, not \"tissue.\"",
">\n\nThat doesn't change what I've said. The goal of the abortion procedure is not to \"kill\" the thing inside of you, it's to remove it. If that thing is a living breathing thing that can subsist of its own will, great. If not, it will begin to decompose.",
">\n\nAre you saying that something that can’t subsist on it’s own is not a person or that our hands are clean because we didn’t technically kill it?",
">\n\n\nThe most common objection is that Thomson's violinist argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape\n\nin my scenario the action is voluntary. hence the exception for rape.",
">\n\nI don’t think that’s true. Thompson addresses the argument that sex is voluntary in her paper. Basically, you haven’t consented to being pregnant just because you had sex. As an analogy, it’s clear that going for a walk at night doesn’t mean you have consented to being mugged.",
">\n\nI'm familiar with Thompson's argument but have never liked it.\nDifferent analogy. A woman goes to a bar after work to have a drink before heading home. She went there without the intent of becoming intoxicated. However, as the night progresses, she does become intoxicated and later attempts to drive home. During the drive she causes an accident which kills another person. She sobers up the next day and feels remorseful, and regrets having driven; however, argues that she should not be held responsible for the accident as she only consented to drink, not to the intoxication, and certainly not the vehicle accident.\nWe know the answer legally- but morally, is she not accountable for the life lost in the accident?\nI say she is. She may not have intended to become intoxicated and drive drunk, but she consented to drink knowing that the natural consequence of consuming alcohol leads to intoxication. She may not have explicitly consented to being intoxicated, but she did consent through her actions while sober. As such, although unintended, she is responsible for the accident and death of another.",
">\n\nThat’s a different question. Yes she is morally responsible. The question is did she consent to having something done to her?",
">\n\nI don't see it as a different question at all- it all comes to consent. Pregnancy is not \"something done\" to a woman- it's a natural biological condition requiring sex as a prerequisite.\nFor many women, sex involves risk of pregnancy. I am not arguing that consenting to sex is explicit consent to become pregnant- it isnt. My argument is that the very nature of sex requires implicit consent to the risk of pregnancy, including the consequences thereof. \nThe drunk driving analogy is very relevant here. The woman only consented to drink (ie, sex). She did not explicitly consent to intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy), let alone an accident (ie, condition of pregnancy). However, by consenting to drink (ie, sex), she implicitly consented to the natural consequence of drinking, intoxication (ie, risk of pregnancy). She may not have intended for anything more than a drink (ie, sex), but her willful and consenting actions produced the conditions required for the accident (ie, condition of pregnancy).",
">\n\n\nObviously, no right is absolute, and bodily autonomy is not absolute either. Whether it be vaccine mandates or the draft, bodily autonomy is violated by countless laws in favor of other interests.\n\nIt is not violated in draft or vaccine mandates - bodily autonomy is the ability of one person to demonstrate power and agency over choices concerning their own bodies. Draft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Vaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nHowever, I believe this kidney disease comparison is not directly analogous to abortion and flawed for the following reasons: \nu did not give them kidney disease\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nu are not the only one who can donate a kidney\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\nu have a special obligation to ur own children\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nA more apt analogy is as follows: Having (protected) sex comes with a small chance that your 1-year-old baby will contract lethal leukemia. The only cure is 9 months of blood transfusions from you and you only, which will automatically be delivered via teleportation. You decide to have sex anyway, and your child gets leukemia. Would it be moral for you to exercise ur bodily autonomy and terminate the automatic blood transfusions?\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\nThat is the problem with moral arguments - they are rooted in subjective morality and the law should give people option to decide according to their own morality in situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nBut if you believe a fetus is a child\n\nAnd here we come to a final nail in the coffin. There is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.",
">\n\n\nDraft does not strip you from that, it forces you to serve a in military - which has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your body. \n\nVaccine mandates also do not force you to take vaccine, they are specifying that for participation in certain public spaces you need to be vaccinated, you are fine to be non-vaccinated and not use those facilities.\n\nalready gave delta for this.\n\nEven if you have given them kidney disease you cannot be forced to give them a kidney.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nEven if you are the only match you are not forced to give them a kidney\n\ntrue. it's just another compounding variable I added.\n\nAnd it is perfectly legal at any point of parenthood to give your children up for adoption.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nWould it be moral to force you to continue these transfusions even if there is risk of death and health complications?\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nthey are rooted in subjective morality\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nshould give people option to decide according to their own morality \n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nin situations where there is no correct choice.\n\nwho decides which situations have \"no correct choice?\" oh wait... that decision is also subjective. \n\nThere is no objective measure by which fetus is considered a child. It is a position that is solely subjective and based on morality, not on any scientific basis.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis. yet we enshrine it anyway.",
">\n\n\nIt also includes a chance of a bullet tearing its way through your \nbody.\n\nNot really, draft means military service, not combat service. A conscientious objector will still be drafted, will still be a soldier but will perform civilian work or noncombatant service in lieu of combatant military service.\n\nwell, then I believe you should.\n\nThen you would need many law changes, starting with changes in donor laws as for now only donorship that is possible is “a voluntary and legally binding uncompensated transfer.” So you would need to designate organs as property for them to be able to be designated as recompensation, which would open a donor market to be exploited and finally it would need repelling and altering of V amendment. Quite a work here.\n\nyep, but you also can't just starve them to death without giving them up for adoption\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions. For fetus, we have no other options - either we force woman into pregnancy and labor or we allow abortion.\n\ndepending on how high the risk is ig. probably consult a doctor.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\nAnd that is the other part of the issue - \"I believe you should\" is easy to say, discussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\neverything is rooted in subjective morality\n\nAnd subjective morality becomes law if society agrees on it. I can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nso... shooting people is legal if I decide it is moral?\n\nYes, that is exactly what we do. Shooting people in self defense is considered moral. Shooting people as LEO or soldier is also considered moral.\nAny action has judged their morality based on circumstances and in itself is not immoral.\n\nmany things are not based on science. for instance, the right to bodily autonomy has no scientific basis.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?",
">\n\n\nBecause that would be cruelty, as you have other oprions\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nA conscientious objector\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right, but I digress.\n\nHow high risks are acceptable? Is 14% risk of health complication justifiable for this?\n\nidk\n\nWho bears the costs of forced pregnancy? Should the state which forced it bear the costs?\n\nthe parents\n\nWhat about the miscarriages? If abortions are illegal, should we investigate miscarriages for possible crime?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\ndiscussion about what are consequences of making a belief into law are something that needs to be taken into account.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nI can believe anything but to make it into a law I need to make people support it.\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nDo you consider sociology, psychology or philosophy \"not a science\"?\n\nwell if you define literally everything having to do with morals and laws as a science, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... and unlike hard science, those fields have very consequential and incompatible disagreements.",
">\n\n\nso if, hypothetically, there were nowhere to adopt, starving your own child because of bodily autonomy is ok?\n\nOne has nothing to do with other - child can be taken care of anyone. That is the problem with hypotheticals in case of abortion - in that case fetus cannot survive without mother and mother inherently takes a physical toll just to allow fetus to survive and risks health problems by doing so.\n\nand someone who is not will be forced to combat\n\nBecause they agreed to this. You have option to object to combat assignment and will not serve in one. Hence no one is forcing you to risk bodily harm.\n\nand I'm pretty sure the draft is basically just slavery/forced labor, objector or not. hence violating a different right\n\nYep, I am only looking at it through bodily integrity lens, draft as a whole idea is stupid.\n\nidk\n\nBut you are one to be sure to force it.\n\nthe parents\n\nBut the parents don't want to carry pregnancy, they are forced to do so. So on top of being forced to bear health risks, they are being slapped with financial costs?\n\nhypothetically, if fetuses were people, yes.\n\nAnd cause any woman that miscarry to get additional trauma of being investigated as killer of baby they wanted to have?\nYour point seems to become more and more pro-fetus-life only.\n\nmaybe, but this post is about my beliefs, not a specific implementation into law.\n\nIf your belief are that you want to protect fetus life, you would not support laws that actually make it more common for fetuses to die, right?\n\nwho said anything about making laws and getting people to agree with me? I'm not running a campaign here.\n\nBut that is the issue - what matters is legality (and also viability to enforce law). Morality is your subjective position on something, as ling as it legal it is your choice if you feel ok with exercising that right. But if it's legal then your morality has nothing to do with choices of others as long as they are also within legality. And to enforce your belief you would need to change law.\nAlso if fetus is a child - should having sex with pregnant woman be considered sexual act involving minor? If you had sex with your partner and find put that she was 2 months pregnant - would we need to register you as sex offender?",
">\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\nIn reality, caring for a child is a huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades (even more honestly) of time and energy in commitments. You need a large amount of capital, a stable home, food/water and health needs for the child, education, everything. \nIf the mother and father don't want to raise the child but is forced to, then that child grows up terribly, especially so if adopted. Adoption in the US is notoriously bad.\nI think that a fetus is a future person in the making, but if both parents don't or realistically can't afford to care for them, then abortion is necessary. Life is full of things that are immoral but necessary and this is one of them imo. \nMaybe in the near future, birth control for both men and women with little side effects and non permanency will pop up and put this debate to an end.",
">\n\n\nMorality matters less to me than practicality.\n\nwell, since morality is the study of right and wrong and what we should do, it is quite literally the ONLY thing that matters in EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.\n\na huge and demanding process that takes up to 2 decades\n\nthat is a pragmatic moral consideration. i.e. the demands of childcare create morally relevant burdens on the parent and on society.",
">\n\nI stand firm in my view that the words \"pro-life\" and \"anti-abortion\" should be changed to be simply \"pro-birth\". Once a life is here then it needs more than just birthing - it needs clothing, food, education, safety, loving parent/s, etc. Children born to an unwilling mother are disadvantaged for life. I will change my view when the world has fewer unwanted and abandoned children.",
">\n\nI would argue that adding to the neglected children of the world is more immoral.\nIdeally, children would grow up with all their needs met. An unwilling parent is not going to meet their emotional needs, even if they meet the physical. There’s also the issue of people who cannot afford to provide for a child’s physical needs and people who are physically unable to care for a child. \nYou could argue for adoption but again, how many children spend years sat in group homes or being abused by foster parents? Until the adoption process is sorted, I’d argue that its not a consistently safe option.\nFinally, the mother’s life is always at risk. Pregnancy and birth is not some magical process where things go right all the time. There are so many things that can go wrong and do go wrong all the time. Even for mothers who won’t die, that doesn’t mean they can carry on their life as normal. What about the woman with a high pressure job who is forced to take more time out to battle post partum depression? What about the avid baker who develops diabetes during pregnancy and can’t enjoy her favourite hobby? Its not as simple as popping a baby out and being done with it",
">\n\nUpdating your belief structure is challenging and there is a lot of bad information, arguments, and fallistic reasoning on both sides of the abortion debate. Claiming the abortion debate is about bodily autonomy is and has always been a red herring. There is no 'right' to bodily autonomy, and the entire concept of human rights collapses without a fundamental right to life; so its pretty easy to argue a persons assumed right to life is more important than their assumed right to bodily autonomy. \nThe abortion debate is about the point at which life begins and the line needs to be drawn somewhere between conception and birth. As you realize, the stakes for this line are quite high because if abortion is allowed too far in to a pregnancy its reasonable for a person to think you are actually killing a baby rather than removing a clump of unorganized dividing cells. You seem to believe that the line should be drawn at the end of the second trimester and that's a very moderate pro life position to hold. Welcome to the club, you can drop the pro-choice label as well if you like.\nIn every context other than abortion, a fetus at any point is considered a person. If a woman is assaulted in the first trimester of her pregnancy and loses it, her assailant will rightfully be charged with homicide. If a mothers baby naturally dies in the womb at 8 months of pregnancy, I'd be shocked to see someone try and convince anyone even remotely close to that situation 'well it's not like it was a real baby'. \nAs a possible alternative view for you to change to or at least consider, the most compelling argument I've heard in the modern abortion debate is: \"We determine time of death from the moment a person's heart stops, therefore life must begin when a heart starts beating.\"",
">\n\nI will be downvoted to hell I am sure but I am both pro-choice and also believe that life begins at conception. Whoever that fetus was going to be is dead and gone and can never be created again, if humans have anything close to a soul, then that soul has been used. But I also believe it is morally just to have safe and legal abortions.\nHowever abortions have happened for hundreds of years, probably thousands so banning abortions does nothing but put women at risk, on top of that whilst I may consider it a person, it isn't a viable person, it will die without a womb, a womb that belongs to another person, not just a womb pregnancy proper fucks with the body and that is a lot to ask of someone. \nAdd to that how an unwanted baby could easily be at risk of abuse, state care for children is chocker with abuse and terrible pretty much everywhere.\nMy point is that currently there is no solution that doesnt present moral issues of some kind and out of all options available abortion is the least damaging.",
">\n\nI'd consider it self-defense, or expunging a parasite, both moral choices.\nIf it were a full person then they would have no right to steal my life force or vitality, nor to damage me severely and possibly even permanently.",
">\n\nDo you think God was justified in killing all the babies in Egypt?",
">\n\nThat wasn't \"God\" , lol. That was Someone that was more advanced and wanted humans to believe he was a god, if that damn kid didn't get in the way when he grew up and tell everybody the truth, lol. That's why he killed them. This \"God\" that people think is out there was made up to keep us in line. But if he were real. my understanding of that God says that He never would kill children. So why would anyone even believe that crap?",
">\n\nKeep going I'm almost there",
">\n\nSorry, u/CassiusIsAlive – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\nDirect responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information. \n\nIf you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. \nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.",
">\n\n\nHere, the issue is bodily autonomy vs the right to life.\n\nWell let's clarify that, a woman's right to bodily autonomy. \nIn my state, (if can be a misdemeanor or up to a felony) only the woman has bodily autonomy. If she decides to go forward with the birth the state will come to me as the bio father and order me to pay support. How do I pay for support? By using my body to generate income. If I don't use my body to generate income they will lock me in a cage under the threat of violence until I pay for said child.",
">\n\nYeah I agree with you that if you do look at it as a person it would be immoral, but I think that's why they take into account how far along the baby is when considering abortions. There's also the hypothetical that if a girl is raped and she ends up being pregnant, would it be justified then",
">\n\nIn that case abortion would be fine, since if we're still using the same analogy, that would be like some witch doctor just attaching a baby to you in your sleep.",
">\n\nwell I don't think there's much of a debate here then. The only people who would feel conflicted are the ones who believe the fetus is a kid"
] |
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