My friend David has pressed me in comments to numerous posts to lay out my moral position on abortion. Often, though not always, he has done so on posts where I have wanted to look at just one portion of the debate about abortion and women's rights as it is playing out in South Dakota. I have avoided a general debate about abortion because, frankly, I maintain that there are other more immediate bread-and-butter concerns that our state politicians ought to be addressing.
However, in the interest of at the very least keeping David on topic on my other posts, I offer this post as the place where David and I will wage our personal debate over this issue of abortion in general. Loyal readers, you are welcome to read my exchange with David, but I will ask that you refrain from commenting here; your comments remain welcome on other posts, but I ask that you permit David and me to conduct our debate one-on-one here. This editor will redirect comments from other readers to this separate post.
Now, to the point, though surely not so satisfactorily to the point as my friend David would have it: I hesitate to lay out my complete position on abortion because I'm not sure I'm at my final position. My political position rests in large part on that hesitance to declare a final personal philosophical position and a recognition of a severe lack of consensus on the issue throughout society. I enter this discussion with David not so much to defend a finished philosophical position but to test where I think I am philosophically and politically and determine whether I want to remain there. As this discussion evolves, you may well find later posts completely contradicting earlier posts, either in appearance or in actuality. No prooftexting, please -- read everything in context, and permit both David and me the opportunity to explain ourselves. The issue is important enough to deserve to be treated carefully and at length. I do not feel obligated to finally resolve any aspect of this issue in one sitting (especially not when David and I still have to get up in the morning to pay the bills and do nice things for our beautiful wives).
All that said, I offer a brief opening position that I expect will lead to lengthy discussion:
- I agree with David that sex conducted wantonly, without mature emotional commitment or consideration of and willingness to be responsible for consequences, is unhealthy for individuals and society.
- I agree with David that abortion used as a method to facilitate such unhealthy sexual behavior is wrong.
- I agree with Justice Ginsberg in her dissent to Gonzales v. Carhart that moral positions do not always justify legal positions:
Ultimately, the Court admits that "moral concerns" are at work, concerns that could yield prohibitions on any abortion. See ante, at 28 ("Congress could . . . conclude that the type of abortion proscribed by the Act requires specific regulation because it implicates additional ethical and moral concerns that justify a special prohibition."). Notably, the concerns expressed are untethered to any ground genuinely serving the Government's interest in preserving life. By allowing such concerns to carry the day and case, overriding fundamental rights, the Court dishonors our precedent. See, e.g., Casey, 505 U. S., at 850
("Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code."); Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 571 (2003) (Though "[f]or many persons [objections to homosexual conduct] are not trivial concerns but profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles," the power of the State may not be used "to enforce these views on the whole society through operation of the criminal law." (citing Casey, 505 U. S., at 850)). - I will argue that the relationship between a woman and a fetus developing inside her is unlike any other human relationship and that moral and legal analogies to murder, child abuse and neglect, euthanasia, or other criminal actions are invalid.
- I will stake out the political position that, much as I wish I could make every one of my students and neighbors behave morally, there are some issues where trying to do so through legislation will achieve little to no social good while doing too much damage to fundamental constitutional and human rights.
[Same post as before, but with minor changes in word choice.]
ReplyDeleteSweet, our own personal sandbox.
Your (tentative) position seems to be that (A) you think casual abortion is irresponsible, but (B) passing moral legislation along those lines would infringe on women's rights.
My first response is that there is not (as you seem to maintain) two independent spheres... one for morality and one for legality. Legislation is always about moral principles. (We think stealing is wrong, therefore it is outlawed.) Granted, not everything immoral is outlawed (i.e. lying to your wife or taking a sick day when you are fully healthy), but there is no such thing as a legal position that is immune from moral discussion. Every piece of legislation, from treason down to picking up your pooch's poop is a moral position. It is simply impossible to defend something as merely a legal position and therefore unattached to morality. Laws are made, defended, and repealed on moral principles... they owe their existence to morality.
That said, I would interpret your position in 3 and 5 not as a case of legality Vs morality, but one of morality Vs morality... more precisely, the morality of the law as it stands Vs the morality of the law I would like to see, which denies casual abortions. It's a conflict between the moral right for a woman to live her life as she wishes (despite her actions a few months ago) Vs. the state imposing a moral standard on her to act responsibly.
That said, it leads me directly into the second important thing I want to point out: that despite their rhetorical appeal, "rights" are a sloppy ethical concept. The intent of rights was to imbue citizens with certain guaranteed privileges... privileges that would never be revoked under any circumstances. My "right" to life implies that the government will do whatever it can to not let anyone kill me... and persecute harshly anyone who does.
The problem is that there is no privilege that you can give a man (or a woman) absolutely. Ethics is always determined by circumstances. Hence, if I had an absolute right to free speech, I would be able to yell "Bomb" in the courthouse or say the N-word to a black police officer. If I had an absolute right to free press, I could knowingly print lies about people I don't like to incite a scandal. If I had an absolute right to bear arms, I could manufacture anthrax and U-235 in my basement. If a criminal had an absolute right to life, then I couldn't shoot him in self-defense.
There is no right, no not one, that we can grant absolutely. The concept of a right is always subordinate to circumstances. And although it's not necessary for this discussion, because of that subordinate relationship, I could go on to argue that philosophically, rights don't even exist (except as rhetorical devices). Even in this country, which took Locke's concept fresh off the press and constructed the whole legal system on it, natural law principles (Thomas Aquinas, not Isaac Newton) are always overruling rights, because natural law is what we (subconsciously) appeal to when we argue that a certain right cannot be upheld in a certain situation.
Therefore, I submit that there is nothing to prohibit us from analyzing casual abortion and concluding that it is a flagrant violation of moral responsibility... and that outlawing such violations are in keeping with the U.S. (and S.D.) principles of law.
Interested, as always, in your thoughts on the subject.
Into the sand...
ReplyDeleteYou get my argument backwards. I agree that legal positions are not immune from moral discussion.* However, I suggest some moral positions may be immune from legal discussion. You yourself acknowledge that "X is wrong; therefore, we outlaw X" lacks some key connecting proposition. "Lying to one's wife is wrong, therefore we outlaw lying to one's wife"? No.
What is that connecting proposition? Is it seriousness of the offense? I doubt that. I consider (and I hope everyone in our family-values state considers) leaving one's dog's poop in a public park a much less grave offense than lying to one's wife, yet pooper-scooper laws outnumber sweetie-cheatie laws. I could argue that high school students commit a much graver offense in plagiarizing papers than in drinking moderate amounts of beer on the weekend, yet drinking a beer will bring down on a minor's head penalties from both the school (suspension from extra-curriculars) and the courts (probation, suspended license, community service, maybe jail time), while plagiarism brings only academic penalties (zero for the assignment) with no vigorous legal prosecution.**
Laws do owe their existence to morality, but that morality is always tempered by a somewhat pragmatic cost-benefit analysis. We have to determine whether a law will effectively mitigate the immorality that concerns us without wreaking too much havoc with other moral and practical priorities. We don't ban drinking and smoking, even though both habits have moral implications and anti-social impacts, because Prohibition seems to generate even worse impacts while failing to sufficiently stem the original problem.
Why not ban abortion completely? I do hold that a complete ban won't stop the problem. Roe v Wade didn't invent abortion.
But maybe more important are the greater problems created by authorizing the state to police reproductive activities. You base your argument for banning abortion on the assumption of moral irresponsibility on the part of women and men having sex and then choosing to kill the fertilized embryo or fetus (casually, of course). Neither of us approves of irresponsible sex.*** But not every pregnancy is a result of irresponsible sex (exceptions: rape and incest victims, birth control errors), and neither is every abortion (exceptions: health risks to an otherwise willing mother, changes in financial or other situations after conception). If we ban abortion in an effort to stem all this sex we disapprove of, then whom will we appoint as the Sex Police to determine when the conditions of exceptions for life and health of the mother or rape and incest victims are met? I know you've rejected the value of privacy in previous disucssions, but do you really want the government probing into everyone's sexual choices? Just which government official will you trust to determine which sex is responsible and which is not?
Now the problem of policing sex disappears if we simply ban all abortion. "You're pregnant? Good! you will bring this child to term, no matter what." But at that point you are mandating that one person place her body at the service of another person, and not even a fully formed, perhaps not even viable person. There lies the most dangerous aspect of an abortion ban. You claim there is no such thing as an absolute right/privilege, but you would grant an absolute right/privilege to life to a fetus, an entity with arguably less claim to rights/privileges than the living, breathing, independent woman who must subjugate herself to the state's mandate that she carry that fetus to term. What else may the state then mandate? Can the state surveil or even detain the woman to ensure she carries out her duty to the fetus?
Perhaps we can trust the good king not to impose such burdens on women. But we create laws with an eye toward not the good king but the bad king. A complete abortion ban imposes on women a second-class citizenship that cannot be imposed on men. I suggest that the unique burden of child-bearing justifies granting women a unique legal freedom in determining whether they will accept that burden. Too many circumstances prevent women from exercising that freedom completely and reliably before conception; perhaps those circumstances thus require us to permit women some leeway after conception in their reproductive choices.
I await your comments with patience and interest.
----Notes----
*Perhaps trivially to this discussion, I note that some legal positions don't have much to do with morality. When I ask the game warden why I have to buy a sticker for my canoe, he will say, "Because that's the law." There is no profound moral dimension to canoe licenses; they are just a convenient mechanism the state has chosen to generate revenue. I could donate a thousand dollars to Lake Herman State Park, and the game warden would still bust me for not paying my $21 to the county for my boat license.
**I should be careful -- I'm verging into all these potential analogies, when I'm the one who declared in Principle #4 that I'm ready to nullify any analogy to abortion you may use to ustify your argument. Let us both analogize at our own peril!
***Our gentle readers are welcome to ask just who the heck we two eggheads are to judge anyone else's sex acts as "irresponsible" and to codify our distaste of their sex acts into law.
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Say, here's a sudden though five minutes after waking: if irresponsible sex is the root sin in this issue, why aren't we debating a chastity law?
ReplyDeleteAltogether I think we're on the same track. Only a pair of things struck me as needing rebuttal.
ReplyDelete"If we ban abortion in an effort to stem all this sex we disapprove of, then whom will we appoint as the Sex Police to determine when the conditions of exceptions for life and health of the mother or rape and incest victims are met?"
I don't myself see much of a problem here. "Sex police" is not really an accurate term, since there is no need to actually spy on the deed itself. We already prosecute rape and statutory rape cases without installing cameras in every bedroom. If someone were seeking an abortion under the rape clause, she would get in touch with the D.A. and file a rape report. DNA evidence would be collected from the aborted fetus and the rapist would be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law. No additional police staff or police-peeking-in-windows protocol is required. (And remember that only about 1% of abortions are sought because of abusive acts.)
As for incest, it would be treated the same way as rape... non-consensual (or statutory rape) cases would be pursued to the full extent. Consensual incest cases would be treated no different than consensual sex between strangers. In other words, the "incest" part is a null factor. Rape between family members is treated like rape, and consensual sex between family members is treated like consensual sex.
Life/health of the mother can be determined by medical professionals. They document in the patient's chart the complications of the pregnancy, inform the patient, inform the family, and inform their hospital. The hospital would be required to keep records of all life/health abortions for 10-15 years (I don't know off the top of my head what the chart retainment laws are, but I'm guessing it's 10-15 years as a minimum). And any fraud or malpractice would be reviewed by a medical ethics committee or (if warranted by the severity) a public trial. (About 6% of abortions are sought out of medical necessity.)
All-in-all, I don't see that there is an unfavorable "pragmatic cost-benefit analysis" to enforcing my theoretical law... and no need to throw our hands in the air and insist that if we're going to ban abortion we have to ban traumatic and medically-necessary abortions along with casual abortions.
"Say, here's a sudden thought five minutes after waking: if irresponsible sex is the root sin in this issue, why aren't we debating a chastity law?"
Here are a couple of reasons:
(A) A chastity law is precisely one of those kinds you pointed out that would be overly difficult to enforce. Window-peeking would be necessary, which offends privacy sticklers like my wife. I would never get any action.
(B) The act of irresponsible sex, while it is the root for the irresponsible abortion, is not in fact the greater irresponsibility. Just like lying to one's boss is a root to, but not worse than, embezzling from one's boss... or hating your neighbor is a root to, but not worse than murdering him. (Unless we were talking about Christian theology: spiritual salvation and difference between sins of thought Vs deed... which we aren't.)
What good is an exception for rape if rape takes months to prosecute? One old set of data (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, 1998 gives an average rape case processing time of 9.2 months. (I welcome updated figures.) Obviously, we can't wait for successful prosecution of a rapist before granting the victim permission to abort. I don't think we can put rape on some sort of fast-track prosecution schedule -- every citizen deserves due process So what then? Suppose we permit women to abort in the first trimester only if they swear under oath at the hospital that they were raped. I assume we would hold the women criminally responsible if they lied under oath. Then what happens if the prosecution goes wrong? What happens if the rapist can afford a better lawyer than the states attorney? What happens if the police botch the investigation, or there's a mistrial, or any number of errors that could result in no conviction? Do you then put the woman in jail?
ReplyDeleteAnd what about women who are afraid to come forward and report that they have been raped? Remember, I live in a town where people are afraid to express political views out of vague fear of retribution. Imagine the fear a woman in this community might feel if she were raped by a man with money and influential friends. She might well think that reporting her rape would lead to the rapists' friends seeking some retribution against her (outright violence, character assassination, economic retaliation ). Do you want to impose on this woman the burden of going on the record and further endangering herself (and making her come to this decision on a very short time frame, before we reach whatever deadline you would set for allowing even the exceptional abortions)?
I'm guessing that we are for the most part in agreement. You don't seem to have any objections to my moral position, but just a couple nagging questions about the details of the rare exceptions we have to work with. In other words, we have agreement on the foundation, blueprint, and building materials of the house, but we are still discussing what that one light fixture in the kitchen should be. I don't hear any arguments to doze the house.
ReplyDelete1) According to my above link there are 93 selfish abortions for each abortion sought out for rape. Perhaps it is impossible to craft the perfect rules for the rape exception, just as it might be impossible to craft the perfect rules for drunk driving (some people are fully capable of driving home at 0.08). But that doesn't stop us from putting forth well-intentioned laws to squelch the bulk of irresponsibility. We should try as hard as possible to make the perfect rules for the rape exception, but the difficulty of that task should not halt us from going ahead in the best way we can to address the much greater population of irresponsibility. If the perfect rules are impossible we will error on the side sympathetic to the rape victim (just like the imperfect drunk driving laws side with the sober drivers).
2) I don't think that the perfect rules for the rape exception are completely impossible. You're right that we can't wait for the full prosecution, so here's how I think it could go.
A) The victim calls 911 to report the rape.
B) The victim takes a sworn statement acknowledging the rape and as many details as possible. C) If the victim knows the perp (ie date rape), then she is required to reveal his identity.
D) The victim has to let the police/medical examiners run a rape kit to extract DNA evidence and other clues about the incident.
This would all be done within a day or two of the incident... and most likely at that time the victim wouldn't even know if she were pregnant. But provided the victim did this, she would be cleared for an abortion, should she discover that the incident caused her to become pregnant. (If an ultrasound or other medical tests puts the point of conception a few weeks before or after the attack, then she is no longer entitled to the abortion.)
The case is in the hands of the authorities... we can even make a provision that the victim's testimony is completely sealed until needed at trial. (Which should diminish the vague fear of retribution.)
If the authorities conclude that she was not raped, yes she will have to face charges along the lines of perjury, misuse of the 911 system, and possibly fraud. It would be no different if you or I called the cops and insisted that a fake burglary happened. But where I disagree with your post is that legally there is a difference between one rape suspect successfully defending his trial, and proving beyond reasonable doubt that the victim was not raped at all. You suggested that if he gets off, she's going to jail... but that isn't necessarily the case. Just because Joe didn't rape her, doesn't mean that she wasn't raped, since there could be another rapist. On the other hand, if as a part of Joe's defense, he shows the jury a videotape of the night in question where they are clearly having consensual sex... then our 'victim' will have to be tried for perjury, etc.
Basically what I'm saying is that a conviction isn't necessary for the rape provision... just a full and honest effort to report the rape.
As for the hypothetical woman who is so afraid that she doesn't even want to try to convict the perp... I guess she has the option of birthing the child and giving it up for adoption. It certainly doesn't seem justified in my mind to open the floodgates for all selfish abortions just because of this extremely rare, and possibly completely hypothetical rape victim. Just because we think a person in one exceptional circumstance should have an anonymous abortion does not mean that we should allow everyone to have an anonymous abortion.
Yes it does.
ReplyDeleteMore fully:
ReplyDeleteOn our apparent general moral agreement: Even if our moral positions are similar, are political positions remain vastly different. While our debate-trained readers might be expecting complete rebuttals at every turn and viewing arguments left unaddressed in a comment as dropped (i.e., conceded), David and I both reserve the right to return to earlier issues. Sometimes I will muster a complete point-by-point refutation, but sometimes we may want to focus on just one issue several cycles before turning to other points. Conversation rules, not debate rules, apply here. We do disagree on much more than the light fixtures in the kitchen; we disagree on the cameras in the bedroom and the structure of authority we will grant to the state over women's bodies.
A disclaimer: Keep in mind that you witness here the musings of two men who can never directly experience abortion or the impacts of rape the way women do. Even if David or I were raped, we never face the prospect of being forcibly impregnated. We thus speak from a greater ignorance than usual.
Busting the drunk-driving-law analogy:
--We don't pass laws against drunk driving because it is immoral; we pass laws against it because drunks pose a public safety threat (an empirically proven bigger one than Osama, Timothy McVeigh, and school shooters combined).
--Drunk-driving prosecution entails revocation of a state-issued license, plus denial of personal liberty through imprisonment or fine. An abortion ban with the conditions you impose for rape victims puts the state on the side of rapists further violating the bodily and emotional integrity of women in a way no state measure can violate the rights of men.
--The imperfect drunk driving laws authorize sobriety checkpoints that permit police to temporarily detain and search me without probable cause. Even if I am widely known as a complete teetotaller, the police can still put up their barricades on any road at any time, pull me over, ask me questions, smell my breath, peer over my shoulder into my car, and make me five minutes late. That minor inconvenience annoys me. Drunk driving endangers the public, but consistent with the Fourth Amendment, I would still ban sobriety checkpoints and require that every traffic stop be based on probable cause (my being on the road is not enough; the cops need to see me weaving).
Your imperfect abortion/rape law would require a rape victim to sort out her emotions within 48 hours, call the police, subject herself to another physical violation in the form of the rape kit, and face the prospect of harassment from the accused, his lawyer, and his friends and family, who will all know when the accused is arrested, even if her report is sealed until the trial, that she squealed. All of that is no minor inconvenience; that is the state perpetuating the conditions of fear and domination that the rapist initiated. I will not, in the form of the state, cause that harm to that one woman just for the sake of my moral stand against irresponsible sex. I will permit 93 women to have non-rape related abortions to spare that one rape victim the further horrors of the state telling her the rapist has succesfully taken away her right to bodily integrity.
Why David's Rules Stink:
A) The victim calls 911 to report the rape.
Some women aren't in any condition to call 911. They may have been beaten unconscious. They may try blocking out the whole incident. They may be terrified by threats the rapist made ("Tell anyone, and I'll be back").
B) The victim takes a sworn statement acknowledging the rape and as many details as possible.
In her required rush to report, if she gets any detail wrong, she sets herself up for perjury. Maybe a judge will be sympathetic, maybe the judge won't. The defense lawyer certainly won't, not if the client can win a dismissal or an acquittal by threatening the accuser with a challenge to her sworn statement that could subject her to legal penalty. The lawyer doesn't even have to go so far as presenting the consensual sex video; the lawyer can simply go after any fact on the record to get the accuser in trouble.
And how many details does she have to reveal to qualify for an abortion?
C) If the victim knows the perp (ie date rape), then she is required to reveal his identity.
Retribution. Some women are willing to face the heat. Some women, victimized for the first time or victimized for years, are not. An abortion may be the simplest, safest way for them to escape at least a few of the consequences of the crime committed against them and move on.
D) The victim has to let the police/medical examiners run a rape kit to extract DNA evidence and other clues about the incident.
If someone robs my house, I don't have to report the crime to restore my loss. I don't have to let police snoop around in my ransacked home or ask me a single question before I sweep up, fix the broken window, and go to the store to purchase replacement items. I can restore my home to its prior physical condition and deal with the emotional trauma of the violation without interference from the state. I am not required to surrender a single right or privilege to the state as a result of a crime committed against me. I thus cannot subject women who have suffered a far greater crime to far greater infringement on their right to deal with the aftermath as they see fit.
On "Possibly Completely Hypothetical" Rape Victims
We're not hypothesizing here. We're philosophizing in the midst of a society that indoctrinates children in the jock-cheerleader, beer-drinker-bikini-babe, me-Tarzan-you-Jane hierarchy that encourages men to act like brutes and treat women as deserved prizes. Women are brutalized and terrorized. Women do have to deal with pressures that you and I, by the luck of our chromosomes, don't have to face. We thus must tread lightly as we make rules that affect the other half of our race much more than those rules can ever affect us.
Ok, just for clarification... does your entire argument for keeping selfish abortions legal rest on giving an anonymous cover to those exceptionally few women who were raped and who don't want to bring their rapist to prosecution? That is, we have to let 1000 people into the abortion clinic so that 1 of those 1000 can effectively 'hide' the fact that she was raped? If so, I'll launch myself fully in rebuttal to that argument. But I can't help thinking that it's just fixing a light fixture, when you seem to have a desire to doze the whole house.
ReplyDeleteSo do you actually have a reason for defending selfish abortions themselves? Or are you content in defending them just as an extension to the rape-victim-who-doesn't-want-to-prosecute-her-perpetrator circumstance?
First, let me ask for clarification on your use of the term "selfish abortion." Either you are using "selfish" simply as spin to make your opponent look bad (you old sophist), or you are expressing a tautology, as you could argue that all abortions are done for "selfish" reasons in the very literal sense of the word. Rape victims may choose abortion to avoid a burden on themselves imposed by a criminal. Mothers facing health risks from carrying a pregnancy to term may choose to abort to avoid their own injury or death. Do you use selfish to distinguish classes of abortion, or is it just judgmental and redundant rhetoric?
ReplyDeleteNow, in answer to the pending question, the rape-victim rationale is not the only basis for my rejection of an overall ban on abortion. There are larger privacy and individual rights issues we have yet to address. (See general principle #5 in original post.) However, I am willing to argue that rape is a sufficiently serious crime to warrant my position. Rape victims are not hypothetical; they are not "exceptionally few." I'm not going to make the rights of 32,000 women a year (that's one number I see floating around) contingent on their willingness to prosecute. The state cannot ban abortion without creating an unjustifiable burden on rape victims.
Hi Cory,
ReplyDeleteIf you've been following the discussion in the peanut gallery, you'll see that 'selfish abortions' is the new 'casual abortions'. Michael harped on the word casual, and I agreed that it didn't quite convey the correct meaning. I consider abortions sought because of rape to be 'traumatic abortions' and those sought for the life/health of the mother to be 'emergency medical abortions'. Are the labels perfect? Probably not. An abortion to save the life of the mother could be traumatic or selfish, in the same way that amputating an infected limb could be traumatic or selfish... but that's a different sort of 'trauma' and 'selfishness'. Trauma because you can't bring your child into the world due to medical complications is significantly different from trauma caused by the act of sex that makes you can't stand the thought of bearing your own child. And selfishness to save your own life from circumstances outside of your control is significantly different from the premeditated selfishness chosen simply because raising a child is inconvenient. But if you insist that 'selfish abortions' is a murky term, I would be glad to use something less ambiguous like 'I-screw-without-thinking-ahead abortions' or 'preemptive infanticide'.
Now to address the rape and anonymity issue...
First of all, exactly who is being helped by the status quo: The rapist or the victim? Would the type of victim we have described be helped or hurt from an anonymous abortion? Your assumption is that she would be helped, but I believe that a woman seeking an anonymous abortion under these circumstances is more likely to be in the domestic-abuse-type mindset. She hides the scars and bruises not as a rational response to the situation, but out of fear of the perpetrator. The rapist can insist she gets an anonymous abortion and continue to terrorize her the rest of her life. Were she required to report the rape, the authorities could then step in, lock the guy up, and save her life. I think my position actually helps the victims more than yours does.
Second, you are really advocating a position where the rapist gets away with it. When voters go in the booth to consider this issue, you are as much as telling them that you think that a certain percentage of rapists should get away with their crime. "Don't ban selfish abortions, because then every rapist causing a pregnancy would have to be called accountable!" I have no sympathy for that statement.
Third, contrary to what each sane parent and teacher tells their children, you are really fostering an attitude that people shouldn't take crimes to the authorities. The solution for each situation of physical, emotional, sexual, or drug abuse is supposed to be: "Tell the police, they'll make an intervention, and then you can piece your life back together." Your position is as much as saying, "Don't trust the police, telling them will only make things worse. Instead try to shell up and cope with the situation on your own. (Even though your perpetrator is at large.)" It is akin to saying that we shouldn't report organized crime out of fear of retribution... yet what precisely kept Al Capone successful for all those years?
Fourth, let us once more be clear that the situation you are defending is not impeccably virtuous. There is a lot of gray area surrounding this circumstance about whether or not someone should report the rape... and in my mind it's more black than gray. But supposing for a second that we do think there are certain circumstances where we consider it morally acceptable, the objection you are supporting treats it as pure 'white', and (more importantly) it creates additional 'black' ramifications.
A loose analogy: Vigilantism is a bad way to run society, but there probably are a few exceptional cases where we would agree that it is morally acceptable. Similarly, hushing up every rape is a bad way to run society, but it might be ok in some rare instances. Your objection based on the latter case strikes me as something similar to repealing gun registration laws, because it would help those few good vigilantes stay more anonymous (and therefore more effective as a vigilante). Nevermind the fact that gun registration helps solve countless crimes, we have to make sure that the rare vigilante is afforded every advantage. So too with this rape objection. In large we think that rapes should be prosecuted, and we agree that selfish abortions are totally irresponsible... but based on the one possible rare exception where an anonymous abortion might be morally acceptable, we are going to write the whole law. That just doesn't cut it... we don't help 1000 criminals for the sake of 1 vigilante (whose ethics are in question), nor do we swallow 1000 selfish abortions for the sake of being able to smuggle in the crowd 1 scared rape victim (whose decision not turn in her perpetrator is in question). Should we turn a blind eye to 1000 cases of income tax fraud because 1 of those might be cheating the government to fund medical missions to Africa? This is not sound reasoning for public legislation.
Finally I'll take a swipe at any other comments that wouldn't be addressed above.
"We don't pass laws against drunk driving because it is immoral; we pass laws against it because drunks pose a public safety threat"
And violating "public safety" is immoral. It will always come down to morality.
But why do we dismiss so cavalierly that selfish abortions are not a threat to public safety. I haven't yet built my case on the "human status" of the embryo... but there are empirical facts here that must be taken into consideration. Fetuses aren't boogers or fingernail clippings... they have their own DNA, heartbeat (3 weeks), brainwaves (5 weeks), and free will (kicking, 18th week). No I don't consider abortion the same as murder, but if we are to error in our thoughts on embryos, we should error on the side of giving them human status, not garbage status.
"An abortion ban with the conditions you impose for rape victims puts the state on the side of rapists further violating the bodily and emotional integrity of women in a way no state measure can violate the rights of men."
By submitting to a rape kit? That's the egregious violation? The woman wants a vacuum cleaner stuck up her womb to stop the pregnancy, but won't submit to a couple of cotton swabs to collect evidence against the person who raped her?
And before brandishing this word "rights" about, let me remind you that rights are a sloppy ethical concept. You have to show a case for why somebody should have a certain "right", who gives it to them, and in what circumstances they give it up. If the government can tell you not to put heroin in your body, it can tell you not to put a vacuum cleaner in your body.
PS I'm in favor of mandatory vasectomies for rapists and men who get women pregnant and then abandon them or encourage them to abort.
"Your imperfect abortion/rape law would require a rape victim to sort out her emotions within 48 hours, call the police..."
How is it that people have the wherewithal to report someone breaking into their house, or murdering their brother within 48 hours, but not report a rape?
"I will permit 93 women to have non-rape related abortions to spare that one rape victim the further horrors of the state telling her the rapist has successfully taken away her right to bodily integrity."
What the hell is bodily integrity? And who has a right to it? If you aren't 18 you can't get a tattoo... see what I mean that 'rights' are sloppy moral concepts?
"I thus cannot subject women who have suffered a far greater crime to far greater infringement on their right to deal with the aftermath as they see fit."
"As they see fit" implies a rational response... but again I will make my argument that those who choose not to prosecute their perpetrator are closer to irrational, than rational. One wouldn't be rational when they are deathly afraid. The rational response is (very nearly) always to bring the rape to the attention of the authorities.
And I still think that this all one big decoy from the main issue. You are having us scrutinize one particular woman in one particular circumstance... but while the microscope is on her, there are at least 93* other women walking right past us into the clinic who are very likely ending a human life just because it would cramp their lifestyle.
*I think the number is more like 1000, believing that at least 9 out of 10 rape victims would want to lock up the rapist.
"I would be glad to use something less ambiguous like 'I-screw-without-thinking-ahead abortions' or 'preemptive infanticide'."
ReplyDelete--just the sort of judgment I don't want to empower the government to make.
You adopt the rhetoric Hunt, Unruh, et al attempt to use: we're really helping women with our efforts to ban abortion. But your other rhetoric makes clear that your general goal is to punish women for behavior of which you disapprove. You can't defend your argument as pro-woman when fundamentally it is pro-government, pro-theocracy, and anti-rights (or anti-privileges, or anti-sloppy concept of things the government will let people do, since it's the government's divine right to grant such permission).
I don't want rapists to get away with anything. I want to make life as hard for rapists as possible. At the same time, I want to leave women who've already been violated by a vicious criminal some remaining shred of control over how they are going to deal with the situation. Forcing rape victims to do anything doesn't sit well with me.
I agree that people should come to the police to report crimes, just like I believe kids should report cheating in school. However, even this plagiarism hawk won't support a school rule punishing kids for not revealing knowledge of plagiarism. There is a difference here between moral duty and legal obligation (rather like the difference between our moral obligation to give our wealth to the poor and the absence of a legal obligation to do so -- and don't say taxes, because a big chunk of our taxes go to corporate farmers, defense contractors, road construction companies...).
The violation experienced in a rape is so different from any other crime, so outside my comprehension, that I will cut a wide swath through our laws to grant those victims some freedom of choice in how they wish to interact with the state, if at all. I don't want women to be afraid to confront their attackers in court, but I can think of a whole host of reasons -- not just the cowardice you seem inclined to ascribe to all such victims, but reasons of psychological therapy, religion, modesty, invasion of privacy, public humiliation, family relations, expense -- that impute no moral failing but could quite easily justify a woman's choosing not to interact with the state over the crime.
"...but if we are to error in our thoughts on embryos, we should error on the side of giving them human status, not garbage status."
I choose to err on the side of granting women human status, not slave status.
Rape kit versus abortion equipment: If a doctor diagnoses a problem in my body, I can choose to submit to surgery. If I say, "O.K., doc, I'll have the surgery," there's no violation. If the state passes a law requiring citizens to surrender their second kidneys to serve the public good, when the surgery police come after me with their scalpels and Igloo coolers, there's a violation.
Or egg donation: if a woman chooses to donate eggs, there's no violation. If the state (or a former state legislator) coerces her into donating eggs, there's a violation.
It's not the procedure itself in question; it's the right of the individual to determine whether she wants to undergo the procedure. I don't want any police officer to be able to come to my wife, my daughter, or me, and demand that I submit to some physical inspection, especially not an inspection of a sexual nature.
"You have to show a case for why somebody should have a certain 'right', who gives it to them, and in what circumstances they give it up."
I thought Jefferson refuted that concept in the Declaration of Independence. Maybe my appeal to "self-evident" rights is a cop-out, but if you won't accept that some violations of privacy (not just secrecy, but autonomy, individual self-determination) are simply not acceptable, then we may not be able to advance the argument on this point much further. Do you really believe you obligated to justify every one of your claims of a right/privilege to the state, that the burden falls on you to prove that the government should permit you to keep your money and property to put curtains up on your windows, to choose your place of work, and to speak your mind on this blog?
"How is it that people have the wherewithal to report someone breaking into their house, or murdering their brother within 48 hours, but not report a rape?"
See above -- rape is just a different crime. Reliving a rape -- thinking about it, telling others about it -- is far different from reporting a burglary or even a murder.
"What the [heck] is bodily integrity? And who has a right to it? If you aren't 18 you can't get a tattoo... see what I mean that 'rights' are sloppy moral concepts?"
See above on the rape-kit discussion. Bodily integrity is like integrity of the home, ut more important. Bodily integrity is essential to identity, which is why rape has such power to devastate its victims in ways that other crimes cannot. Our bodies are our second-to-last refuge (last: our minds) from government intrusion. The state needs a search warrant or extreme circumstances to justify barging into our houses. Protections for our bodies should be even stronger. And tattoos for minors? Come now, that's very different issue. Let's resolve abortion in general first; then we can try to balance that reolved position with the question of minor rights.
"'As they see fit' implies a rational response... but again I will make my argument that those who choose not to prosecute their perpetrator are closer to irrational, than rational. One wouldn't be rational when they are deathly afraid. The rational response is (very nearly) always to bring the rape to the attention of the authorities."
No -- see above -- reason does not always lead one to seek redress through the state (though I think fascism and communism do).
I continue to grant that the rape and incest exception deals with a minority of all abortion cases. I also continue to maintain that it is not the government's place to stand at the abortion clinic doors, and interrogate all the incoming patients about their sexual choices, and force them to submit to gynecological exams to substantiate their answers. You can go stand at the doors (or out on the sidewalk, or wherever the law permits) and try to conduct those interrogations youself. (I would recommend against your trying to conduct the gynecological exams.)
There are all sorts of lifestyle choices of which I disapprove. I will certainly call people to task for lifestyle choices I disagree with (and, in return, I will have to recognize their right to criticize my lifestyle choices). However, I will not use the instrument of state power to impose my will on everyone else for every lifestyle choice I disagree with. There's the real issue, no decoy in sight.
Hi Cory,
ReplyDeleteSince no one seems to appreciate the descriptive wit in my alternative labels, I will hereafter refer to 'casual' or 'irresponsible' abortions as simply 'standard abortions'.
Up to this point the discussion has been exclusively on the rape provision of my theoretical law. Putting that discussion aside for the time being, I would like to know if you feel that standard abortions are criminally irresponsible. Why or why not?
I'll temporarily put aside the discussion of the status of rape victims under your proposed law, but not without a reminder that I do not view that discussion as a distracting side issue. Even if the rape situation is numerically rare compared to the number of other abortions, it poses a significant obstacle to creating a just law. The impracticality and intrusiveness of a blanket ban on abortion or even the conditions you would impose on rape victims are enough to make me vote against your proposal.
ReplyDeleteBut to your question: are "standard abortions" criminally irresponsible? Let me dodge around for a moment as I seek my position:
--Last year's HB 1215 didn't think so. It would have imposed punishment on the practitioners, but not the women themselves choosing to have the abortions. Were Hunt, Unruh, et al saying the women are not behaving with criminal irresponsibility?
--Are we begging the question? I'm not ready to pass a law banning abortion or putting women in jail for having abortions; therefore I wouldn't say an abortion constitutes criminal irresponsibility. Am I just repeating myself?
Let's put the question in some straw man -- or straw bimbo -- terms. Let's put a really unappealing face on the question and see if my thinking matches yours:
Suppose Paris Hilton gets out of prison after serving her DUI sentence. To celebrate, she throws a drunken orgy at one of Daddy's big hotels. A month later, she learns she's pregnant. "Oh my God!" she whines. "I can't get fat, and I've got to party. Get that thing out of me!"
Irresponsible? Yes. Deserving of scorn and contempt? Yes. Deserving of criminal punishment? No. I wouldn't put Hilton in prison for that abortion any more than I would put her in prison for being a superficial snob.
Hi Cory,
ReplyDeleteDo you think that infanticide is criminally irresponsible? If Paris had the child and then 2 months later found it inconvenient for her social life, should she be legally entitled to kill the baby?
If not, what precisely is the difference?
Kind regards,
David
Killng a child is wrong. The moral status of killing an unborn fetus remains in sufficient doubt among members of our society (myself included) that I am not prepared to outlaw the act.
ReplyDelete"The moral status of killing an unborn fetus remains in sufficient doubt among members of our society (myself included) that I am not prepared to outlaw the act."
ReplyDeleteAn appeal to the crowd... the same kind of reasoning that Southern plantation owners used to justify slavery ("considering Black people equal to Whites remains in sufficient doubt among members of our society (myself included)"). Come on, Cory, you're smarter than that.
To make my argument even clearer, consider this explanation:
Any adult living today was at one time an adolescent. Similarly, she was at one time a child, previously an infant, and before that a baby. At any of these various stages she was not a fully mature human, but certainly a human being in development... where we agree that it would be wrong to kill her.
Now how many adults living today were also at one time fetuses? How many were embryos? Again, 100%. Thus the embryo and fetus stage is no different than baby or infant... it is just one other stage of the development of every human being, and should be treated as such. Correct?
At this point you might be tempted to ask me why I don't consider the sperm and egg as human beings in development, to which my reply is that the sperm on its own will not mature into an adult no matter what you give it (unless you give it a human egg). The embryo, by comparison, does have all the DNA needed to develop into an adult and will become one given the basic nourishment and care needed (which is no different from an infant or a teenager).
Thus, ontologically, conception is the discreet starting point to the human development process. According to the relevant biological evidence, the embryo and the child are equally human.
But of course the other thing to consider in morality is intention. If there is a difference in intention between standard abortions and infanticide, we would have to weigh that into the discussion. But I have yet to see that. Abortion for the sake of personal selfishness has exactly the same intentions as infanticide for the sake of personal selfishness.
Interested, as always, in your reply.
Kind regards,
David
Funny -- I thought you said abortion was about responsibility, not babies. As I understood your position, it shouldn't matter whether the woman has a human, a bit of senseless protoplasm, or an alarm clock in her womb. All that matters to you is that the woman had sex under conditions of which you disapprove, and the state should punish her for that unacceptable sex.
ReplyDeleteBut now we're talking about the personhood of the fetus. O.K....
"...the sperm on its own will not mature into an adult no matter what you give it (unless you give it a human egg). The embryo, by comparison, does have all the DNA needed to develop into an adult and will become one given the basic nourishment and care needed (which is no different from an infant or a teenager)."
The fetus differs in at least one important way from an infant or a teenager. Sure, all humans at all stages need proper nourishment and care. However, at birth, the human receive that sustenance from a variety of sources. In utero, the fetus has only one source of nourishment, the mother.
The deciding difference lies not in the personhood of the fetus but in the moral import of what we are demanding of the mother. In your world, the moment a woman conceives, she forfeits the right to control what happens within her body. She is required to subjugate her will absolutely to the needs of another human being. She is required to serve that human being, to her detriment. We don't make that demand of any other citizen in any other circumstance, do we?
You speak of selfishness. Let's pause for a word game and look play with slavery again: Slaves who wanted their freedom were just being selfish, right? They didn't like working for no pay and having no control over their lives (not to mention torture, rape, etc.). They wanted better lives for themselves. They wanted to seek happiness in different circumstances. How selfish!
Labeling a desire as selfish does not equal proving the desire immoral. Labeling a desire selfish is perhaps tautological.
But back to the issue: I oppose banning abortion because I don't want the state to require any citizen to so directly and inescapably serve the needs of another. Punishing a woman for inappropriate sexual activity or trying to teach society sexual responsibility through a likely ineffective exercise of state power is not worth imposing that servitude, not even for nine months.
"Funny -- I thought you said abortion was about responsibility, not babies."
ReplyDeleteStandard abortions are probably murder, but certainly irresponsible and certainly preemptive infanticide. I'm not dropping the responsibility argument, I'm just running another value (aka 'criterion') alongside it.
"All that matters to you is that the woman had sex under conditions of which you disapprove, and the state should punish her for that unacceptable sex."
First, the conditions under which they had sex matter not... they could be two teenagers getting freaky in the state park or a responsible husband and wife. A law against standard abortions would apply equally to all pregnancies (except rape and life/health of the mother), don't you agree?
Second, why do you consider it 'punishment'? Is it punishment to have to fill your car up with gas because you let it idle all night? There isn't any state-imposed retribution... just simple cause and effect, where citizens should always be responsible for their actions and the effects thereof... don't you agree?
"In your world, the moment a woman conceives, she forfeits the right to control what happens within her body."
See... the word 'right' is getting you in trouble again. Men and women in America don't have complete autonomy over their bodies to begin with: no illegal drugs, no tattoos for minors, no driving without a seatbelt over your body, etc. You are arguing for a concept that already doesn't exist.
"I oppose banning abortion because I don't want the state to require any citizen to so directly and inescapably serve the needs of another."
Then what stops you from being in favor of infanticide and childhood abandonment? Our current laws require the mother (and/or father) to raise/nourish babies and infants, to the detriment of the mother's freedom.
Gas tank: I don't have to fill up my tank. The state doesn't punish me if I don't. Responsibility is great; living in fear of the law is something else. Laws promote obedience, not responsibility. If you are arguing for responsibility, you should be arguing not with me about a law banning abortion but with every young woman in your neighborhood about the importance of having sex only within marriage with the intent of marriage.
ReplyDeleteIf I can't even posit the sort of inalieable rights that Thomas Jefferson labeled self-evident, then there's nothing to discuss. I don't support the seat-belt law; I'm uncertain about drug laws; minors' rights are restricted in a host of ways that do not negate the validity of human rights in general. One of the most fundamental property rights is the right to one's own body. Women deserve a certain autonomy over the conduct of a pregnancy that imposes on that autonomy in a way that no other event can. If the woman accepts the burden of pregnancy, then perhaps we can make some requirements of her. When a woman has chosen to carry out a pregnancy, we can perhaps punish another party for threatening or ending that pregnancy (see the murder case in Ohio where the boyfriend killed his pregnant girlfriend). But I still place paramount value on that woman's choice to undertake that awesome burden.
Similarly, we require parents to take care of their children, but only when they have assumed that legal responsibility. Parents who put their children up for adoption face no penalty. Parents can opt out of that responsibility. The pregnant woman has no other options; she can't hand the fetus off to anyone else. I thus vote to preserve the one option available. I don't like it; I want to discourage every woman from getting into a situation where she migh need to use it; however, I won't create the precedent of the state requiring that service.
"Similarly, we require parents to take care of their children, but only when they have assumed that legal responsibility."
ReplyDeleteWhen is the responsibility to become a parent assumed? Why isn't it assumed at the moment of consensual sex?
(And since the parents can legally, and responsibly, dish off their child via adoption, why is it necessary to retain abortion as an option?)
We renew our parental responsibility every day. Obviously the moment of conception does not lock it in permanently, since we permit the voluntary (and involuntary) forfeiture of that responsibility nine months after that moment and well beyond... unless you're about to launch another thread and suggest banning adoption.
ReplyDeleteConception also seems a silly point at which to argue a responsibility begins, since we don't even know when conception happens. If responsibility is an act of will, we must have specific knowledge to inform that act. Even in your world, real responsibility can't begin until we know we've conceived a child (toward which purpose, perhaps you would recommend implanting conception monitors in all women of child-bearing age, so they may know about their responsibility as soon as possible).
And to repeat, we must retain the option of abortion because the adoption option does not kick in until nine months after conception. We cannot leave open this nine-month window of forced servitude (a.k.a. slavery, violation of the 13th Amendment).
Hi Cory,
ReplyDeleteIn my previous question, I asked why isn't responsibility assumed at the moment of consensual sex... not the moment of conception. Consensual sex is an act of will, it is a choice. If the result of that choice places the woman in 9 months of bondage, it is no more slavery than when a woman makes a choice to have a man handcuff her as a part of foreplay.
The analogy to slavery doesn't hold up. Slavery, to be slavery, must forced upon a citizen... not self-chosen. And in your analogy, exactly what kinds of things is the nasty fetus slave-holder making its mother do? She's free to go anywhere she wants, she's free to consume virtually anything she desires (except crack and alcohol), she's free to associate with anyone, free to speak her mind, free to buy new clothes, free to ask for a pay raise, free to vote, and free to worship the deity of her preference. No, your analogy is precisely backwards, it is the fetus who is in bondage... the fetus can assert no will on the matters of where he is going, what he is eating, whether or not he's going bungy-jumping, which candidate he would like to see elected, or which church service he's attending. And apparently you think that this natural slave, the fetus, shouldn't even be free to choose whether or not he is going to live. It's not enough, in your mind, that the tyrant parents should have sovereignty over the house, the food, and the education that her child will have... they should also have the legal sovereignty to take their child's life.
Once again you are trying to obfuscate the issue with noisy words and drab analogies that aren't accurate... and they aren't even that good, Cory. It hardly takes 10 seconds of thinking to demolish the slavery metaphor... just try to picture a fetus whipping his mother in utero. (At least Reese's parasite analogy took a bit more parsing.)
On the other hand, you've chosen just to ignore the infanticide analogy. You even tried to ignore it preemptively by blacklisting murder references in the thread lead. But I can't think of a more apt comparison... the mother (and/or father) feels inconvenienced by the responsibility they have brought upon themselves, so they decide to kill a human in development.
Kind regards,
David
Oops! Sorry -- my bad on consensual sex. That's what I get for blogging fast and inattentively. More later...
ReplyDeleteO.K., reading your discusson of slavery, I'm intrigued. Let's ask a fetus....
ReplyDeleteWhile we wait for comments from rational fetuses exercising their fully formed free will, here's a clarification: the slavery explanation still applies. It's not the fetus whipping the mother into service: it's the government banning abortion and requiring the mother to put her body at the service of another human being, under penalty of law. And every pregnancy carries with it risk to the woman's life and long-term health. There's your slavery. We don't impose that sort of bodily slavery even on the greatest scum in our jails. (Well, there's capital punishment, but I'm having issues with that, too.) We don't haul criminals off to the hospital and take out their kidneys to save other lives. The women we're talking about here aren't even criminals (at least not in my world). The women we're talking about here have been impregnated -- the majority by consensual sex, many despite efforts to use contraception, a minority against their will. I don't turn to women and say "You've had sex, you thus forefit your rights and service the state's interests with your body."
ReplyDeleteAgain, I'm operating along the lines you've laid out in other comments that the fetus isn't the issue. It's not slavery to the fetus; it's slavery to the state. The implication of the state's mandate in an abortion ban supercedes our shared moral concern that people not have abortions for mere convenience. We can still work hard through our families, churches, and social networks to encourage men and women not to make such irresponsible choices. But the exercise of state power creates an unacceptable political precedent that is not created by outlawing murder of viable, adoptable, born children. You're still arguing apples and oranges. The very literal slavery issue raised by a government requirement that a pregnant woman carry her fetus to term renders the comparisons to murder and infanticide incomplete.
[By the way, Erin is brewing a response to you on the other thread. I've heard the rough drafts; you won't be able to destroy her arguments with anything near the ease you perceive in destroying mine.]
Hi Cory,
ReplyDelete"It's not the fetus whipping the mother into service: it's the government banning abortion and requiring the mother to put her body at the service of another human being, under penalty of law."
Where exactly does the tyrannous government step in and do anything? The government isn't in the bedroom during the act of sex. The government isn't coming to the mother's house giving orders. The government isn't taking away the mother's privileges to vote, drive a car, or pray. The government treats the expecting mother just like every other citizen. How precisely is the government imposing any discrimination or loss of freedom?
It's the mother and father who chose to unite their bodies in order to put their bodies into the service of another human being. It's not the government's fault that the mother is pregnant, it was the mother's conscious decision.
"And every pregnancy carries with it risk to the woman's life and long-term health. There's your slavery. We don't impose that sort of bodily slavery even on the greatest scum in our jails."
Last time I checked, the government doesn't impose pregnancy on anyone. No one in the recorded history of the civilized world has ever received a sentence of "10 to 25 years, plus you have to birth 3 boys." (Unless, possibly, you count being married to Henry VIII's as penal, and capital, punishment.)
Furthermore, nature doesn't impose pregnancy on anyone. Women don't randomly conceive children, the way they randomly get cancer or the flu. (Even the one case of divine pregnancy was consensual.)
Rape cases aside, humans only become pregnant by their own intention. The situation is imposed on the mother and the father by precisely the mother and the father. And we don't commonly call situations of self-imposed duty 'slavery', we call them 'responsibility'.
"Again, I'm operating along the lines you've laid out in other comments that the fetus isn't the issue."
It sounds to me like you are continuing to dodge a relevant point of fact. Responsibility is my value, and protecting the life of a human in development is the criterion I'm using to show how the value applies. If the embryo/fetus is merely organic material (ie equivalent to mucus, fingernails, or feces) then the argument for responsibility has no merits. But if the embryo/fetus is a human in development, just like a baby or an infant, then a duty of care is implied which creates the obligation for responsibility.
In other words, I am telling you precisely how you can beat my case: prove that the embryo isn't a human in development; prove that something happens at the moment of birth which changes the objective ontological status of the child's personhood. If you can win that point, I've got nothing... because that contention is precisely what defines the grounds for responsibility. If we aren't talking about a human in development, but something else... like, say, syphilis, then the responsible thing to do is to annihilate the syphilis with as much antibiotic as is necessary to do the job. But it's not responsible to kill a teenager, an infant, or (by logical extension) a fetus, just for the sake of one's convenience.
"But the exercise of state power creates an unacceptable political precedent that is not created by outlawing murder of viable, adoptable, born children. You're still arguing apples and oranges. The very literal slavery issue raised by a government requirement that a pregnant woman carry her fetus to term renders the comparisons to murder and infanticide incomplete."
Please develop this thought... it's not clear to me how the situation is "apples and oranges." The only difference you seem to be referring to is that the fetus is physically in the mother's body... which is a trivial difference at best. Both the baby and the fetus require nurture from their mother/father; yet you consider it good for the government to insist on it in the former case, but not in the latter. And according to the parents I know, a healthy pregnancy is a breeze compared to the first few years of childrearing. Nurturing a fetus requires little more than additional food and rest. Nurturing a baby requires food, shelter, attention, love, money, discipline, diapers and (above all) time. Nurturing a fetus does require a woman to sacrifice with her body, but nurturing an infant requires both parents to sacrifice with their life. Yet you consider the easier situation slavery (a metaphor that still makes me chuckle), and the tougher situation a legitimate legal duty.
Kind regards,
David
I declare this a win by K.O. My last punch sent you to the mat for a ten-count. (10 weeks)
ReplyDeleteI wish you the best of luck taking on wimpier opponents. Maybe someday in the future you'll be ready for another title shot.
Kind regards,
King David
Too bad for the "King" that real-world policy-making is not a game. See you at the polls and in the legislature!
ReplyDeleteReal-world policy making requires discussion, which you have denied me for 10 weeks. I win in that realm, too. (Unless you care to pick up the conversation again.)
ReplyDelete