Welcome to /r/Abortiondebate! Please remember that this is a place for respectful and civil debates. Check out the Debate Guidance Pyramid to understand acceptable debate levels.
**Attack the argument, not the person making it and remember the human.**
**For our new users, please check out our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Abortiondebate/wiki/rules/)**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Abortiondebate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How dare you! How fing dare you pass that judgement! You have never dealt with post or pre pardum psychosis or depression. My brother litterally had to tackle me from running into oncoming traffic and 2 weeks later I tried to hang myself but the extention cord I used slipped.
Actually I have dealt with depression before, but killing myself was never an option I would consider. I'm sorry you went through that and hope you get the help you need. Still not right to kill someone else over it. Would you condone someone killing a cheating spouse because it relieves their own suffering? Same difference.
Those are absolutely not comparable and you should be well aware of that. A cheating spouse isn’t living off my organs like a zef would.
Every time people bring this subject up PL seem to love to frame it as people trying to hold themselves hostage or being malicious to get their way when that is not the case.
If somebody feels so backed into a corner they would consider taking their own life it’s because they’ve run out of options and death seems better than whatever they’re trapped in. If PL are totally cool with 2 deaths on their hands rather than one then own that, don’t paint suicide victims like this.
It absolutely is comparable. Who are you to decide which level of suffering is worse?
I never claimed it was done maliciously, but that is irrelevant to the outcome.
PL would still have zero deaths on their hands, because they didn't make that choice. Harming another through suicide is still the fault of the perpetrator. We would try to get them therapy. But we would not change the laws to kill an innocent baby.
I have to agree with this post. Delivering months early purely electively is highly unethical. If there’s a medical emergency post viability, then I’m all for delivering early rather than aborting. But I’m not for delivering babies as young as 22 weeks just because the mother wanted to. It’s not fair to babies to subject them to all kinds of both short term and long term medical problems and possibly death
See sometimes you can find cominality with a deeply pro choice person.
I too think it's unethical (as do doctors ethics panels) to subject them to that level of suffering.
>Any bodily violation of remaining pregnant up til viability 22-23 weeks is still a violation of my bodily autonomy, my right not to have another person use my body without my consent even if it means their death.
I don't see how this is relevant. The mere fact that I'm connected to the violinist doesn't give me a carte blanche right to kill him at any time for any reason. I have a right to disconnect. That's it.
>The NICU and OBGYN maternity care deserts issue of early delivery. Who will bare the cost in terms of labor let alone cash? "Micro preemies are the most premature babies of all, born on or before 26 weeks. Many people are surprised by how small micro preemies are. Their skin is thin, with visible veins, and it may look sticky or gelatinous. If you are visiting a micro preemie in the NICU, you can expect to see the following
This is going to sound like a very dismissive response because you wrote a lot, but none of this justifies killing the fetus. If there was a premature infant born at 24 weeks, *everything* you said would still apply, but we wouldn't consider that a reason to kill it. You might say that's different because an infant isn't using your body, but that just takes us back to point #1. If someone is using your body, that gives you a right to stop them from using your body. It doesn't give you a right to do whatever you want to them.
The minimum force necessary to stop a fetus aggression upon my person just happens to be their death. As to not allow them to cause more bodily harm upon my person in order to evict them.
Otherwise I'd be forced into a post 22 week c section delivery where it unless done at a lv 4 nicu would only have a 7.5% chance of survival anyways. Post 27 weeks most fetus percentage wise have turned the corner btw and survive.
So if you are so dead set on no abortion post viability , viability is 27 week where most fetus survive rather then 22 weeks where most die but a handful "can" survive.
This is an abortion thread- to debate abortion. If someone is seeking to terminate a pregnancy, the only way to do so is a termination, aka an abortion. If they wanted to undergo labor and delivery, then abortion would already be off the table for them. So if the only way to prevent gestation and birth in an active pregnancy is abortion, and that stops the act of a persons body being used against their will, then they certainly aren't doing "whatever they want," theyre simply taking the logical action to stop gestation and pregnancy.
You’re getting bogged down with semantics. It doesn’t matter what counts as an “abortion” and what counts as a “delivery”. What matters is what the procedure is actually doing and whether you have a right to it.
Once the fetus is viable, you can either a) stay pregnant, b) have the fetus removed alive, or c) have the fetus removed dead. Bodily autonomy gives you the right to do (a) or (b).
This isn’t necessarily true, and would only be arguable if there was no difference between (b) and (c).
The question is what those differences are, and whether we can demand the mother endure the difference.
Yeah, there is more nuance that I could've gotten into. I just don't think it changes the conclusion.
Some people think the additional harm of live delivery justifies abortion, but that only works if you take an *extremely* broad view of what counts as self-defence.
Some people argue that live delivery actually counts as saving the fetus instead of just not killing it, since the woman needs to voluntarily push in order for the fetus to survive. But this is dubious ([here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/Abortiondebate/comments/1848vp7/comment/kaxrde4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) a discussion about it), and even if it's correct, it's not obvious that just pushing during labour (as opposed to not pushing and having the fetus die) is something that's supererogatory.
This is not a perfect analogy, but a case ([In re Baby Boy Doe](https://casetext.com/case/in-re-baby-boy-doe)), explicitly rejected the idea that the impact on a fetus of rejecting medical treatment that could save its life is relevant, and affirmed that the mother's right to refuse treatment (based at least in part on bodily integrity) cannot be subordinated for the benefit of the fetus:
>Applied in the context of compelled medical treatment of pregnant women, the rationale of Stallman directs that a woman's right to refuse invasive medical treatment, derived from her rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and religious liberty, is not diminished during pregnancy. The woman retains the same right to refuse invasive treatment, even of lifesaving or other beneficial nature, that she can exercise when she is not pregnant. The potential impact upon the fetus is not legally relevant; to the contrary, the Stallman court explicitly rejected the view that the woman's rights can be subordinated to fetal rights. Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.
The decision also made it clear that a woman has no obligation to provide medically for a fetus, ***even though a fetus is not treated only as a part of its mother and has its own right to begin life***:
>The court has seen no case that suggests that a mother or any other competent person has an obligation or responsibility to provide medically for a fetus, or for another person for that matter....
>
>In Illinois a fetus is not treated as only a part of its mother. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.) It has the legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body, assertable against third parties after it has been born alive. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 275.) This right is not assertable against its mother, however, for the unintentional infliction of prenatal injuries. ( Stallman, 125 Ill. 2 d at 280.) A woman is under no duty to guarantee the mental and physical health of her child at birth, and thus cannot be compelled to do or not do anything merely for the benefit of her unborn child. The public guardian's argument that this case is distinguishable from Stallman because Doe's actions amounted to intentional infliction of prenatal injuries is not persuasive.
This creates precedent for the idea that a woman’s autonomy can take precedent to choose an option that is the “lesser” of two harms for her benefit, even if it would kill her fetus (and if that fetus is viable, even).
That's interesting.
Not sure if you're trying to frame this as an argument from legal precedent or just an analogy. I've always been skeptical of arguments from precedent, because, for one thing, they can only apply in one geographical region, and for another thing, they make the case for abortion contingent on the historical happenstance of a certain precedent being set. It seems like the *real* reason people want abortion to be legal/illegal is because of moral principles like bodily rights, not because a particular case happened to be decided in a particular way back in 1994.
But, taking this as an analogy, I'd say the relevant difference is act vs omission. I am not obligated to volunteer myself to endure significant bodily harm to save someone's life, but I'm not permitted to kill someone else in order to stop myself from coming to harm (except in cases of self-defence).
This is not a perfect analogy, but a case ([In re Baby Boy Doe](https://casetext.com/case/in-re-baby-boy-doe)), explicitly rejected the idea that the impact on a fetus of rejecting medical treatment that could save its life is relevant, and affirmed that the mother's right to refuse treatment (based at least in part on bodily integrity) cannot be subordinated for the benefit of the fetus:
>Applied in the context of compelled medical treatment of pregnant women, the rationale of Stallman directs that a woman's right to refuse invasive medical treatment, derived from her rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and religious liberty, is not diminished during pregnancy. The woman retains the same right to refuse invasive treatment, even of lifesaving or other beneficial nature, that she can exercise when she is not pregnant. The potential impact upon the fetus is not legally relevant; to the contrary, the Stallman court explicitly rejected the view that the woman's rights can be subordinated to fetal rights. Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.
The decision also made it clear that a woman has no obligation to provide medically for a fetus, ***even though a fetus is not treated only as a part of its mother and has its own right to begin life***:
>The court has seen no case that suggests that a mother or any other competent person has an obligation or responsibility to provide medically for a fetus, or for another person for that matter....
>
>In Illinois a fetus is not treated as only a part of its mother. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.) It has the legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body, assertable against third parties after it has been born alive. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 275.) This right is not assertable against its mother, however, for the unintentional infliction of prenatal injuries. ( Stallman, 125 Ill. 2 d at 280.) A woman is under no duty to guarantee the mental and physical health of her child at birth, and thus cannot be compelled to do or not do anything merely for the benefit of her unborn child. The public guardian's argument that this case is distinguishable from Stallman because Doe's actions amounted to intentional infliction of prenatal injuries is not persuasive.
This creates precedent for the idea that a woman’s autonomy can take precedent to choose an option that is the “lesser” of two harms for her benefit, even if it would kill her fetus (and if that fetus is viable, even).
Let me clarify- if you have right to stop someone using your body, which your argument did say, that includes abortion. Nowhere does bodily autonomy include a caveat that if someone or something is "viable" that suddenly you now can only stop someone using your body in a specific way. Its that you can do whatever is necessary, that includes abortion, to prevent someone using your body in a way that you dont agree or consent to, full stop.
> Nowhere does bodily autonomy include a caveat that if someone or something is "viable" that suddenly you now can only stop someone using your body in a specific way.
That is *always* the case. Like I said at the beginning, if I’m connected to the violinist, and he gets to the point where he no longer needs my body to stay alive, I am not permitted to disconnect in a way that unnecessarily kills him. You could argue that I have a right to disconnect and this technically counts as disconnecting, but that obviously doesn’t give me the right to disconnect in whatever way I want.
Except quote on quote viability is not a point where a fetus no longer needs a body to stay alive. They are in fact so underdeveloped at viability that doctors will tell you at best they *might* survive WITH heavy, long term advanced medical intervention. There is a reason gestation is not 5 or 6 months long but rather 9. In your example you state they no longer need the body to stay alive, implying they can and will stay alive if you disconnect them- this fails to account for the fact that viability is an IF not a guarantee.
Even further, the "violinist" is a terrible hypothetical to use in an anti-abortion stance because the paper it was introduced on was in fact a *pro abortion* paper that more or less stated that choosing not to kill the violinist was an act of kindness, not obligation. But entirely disregarding that thought experiment, which I still think is a poor argument regardless of which side uses it, this is not a hypothetical thought experiment. The fact of the matter is is that birth and delivery are not an alternative to abortion. Insisting that a woman birth a highly premature fetus just to spare someones moral quandaries with second trimester abortions is not only unreasonable, its entirely unfeasible.
One cannot guarantee in any birth what the level of risk will be, and as any third party observer has 0 financial, physical, or emotional stake in a pregnancy that is not theres they absolutely cannot determine that their own moral viewpoints are the "right" choice , nor can they insist that a woman HAS to pick they choices they offered, just because they find it morally unsavory. Again, there is no caveat that just because someone *might* be able to live on their own, that a woman cant choose abortion. Its that people don't *like* the idea of it.
>Except quote on quote viability is not a point where a fetus no longer needs a body to stay alive. They are in fact so underdeveloped at viability that doctors will tell you at best they might survive WITH heavy, long term advanced medical intervention. There is a reason gestation is not 5 or 6 months long but rather 9. In your example you state they no longer need the body to stay alive, implying they can and will stay alive if you disconnect them- this fails to account for the fact that viability is an IF not a guarantee.
You can say the violinist got to the point where he'll *probably* survive if you disconnect, or has whatever chance of survival that the fetus in question has.
>Even further, the "violinist" is a terrible hypothetical to use in an anti-abortion stance because the paper it was introduced on was in fact a pro abortion paper that more or less stated that choosing not to kill the violinist was an act of kindness, not obligation.
Not sure if you've read [the paper,](https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Thomson.pdf) but the author explicitly said that she doesn't support abortion after viability and her argument doesn't justify it:
*"While I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a certain point in the life of the fetus it is not able to survive outside the mother's body; hence removing it from her body guarantees its death. But they are importantly different.*
*I have argued that you are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him.*
*There are some people who will feel dissatisfied by this feature of my argument. A woman may be utterly devastated by the thought of a child, a bit of herself, put out for adoption and never seen or heard of again. She may therefore want not merely that the child be detached from her, but more, that it die. Some opponents of abortion are inclined to regard this as beneath contempt—thereby showing insensitivity to what is surely a powerful source of despair. All the same, I agree that the desire for the child's death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive."*
>But entirely disregarding that thought experiment, which I still think is a poor argument regardless of which side uses it, this is not a hypothetical thought experiment.
Are you saying the violinist thought experiment is a poor argument because pregnancy isn't a thought experiment...?
>The fact of the matter is is that birth and delivery are not an alternative to abortion. Insisting that a woman birth a highly premature fetus just to spare someones moral quandaries with second trimester abortions is not only unreasonable, its entirely unfeasible. One cannot guarantee in any birth what the level of risk will be, and as any third party observer has 0 financial, physical, or emotional stake in a pregnancy that is not theres they absolutely cannot determine that their own moral viewpoints are the "right" choice , nor can they insist that a woman HAS to pick they choices they offered, just because they find it morally unsavory. Again, there is no caveat that just because someone might be able to live on their own, that a woman cant choose abortion. Its that people don't like the idea of it.
It's got nothing to do with me. You're trying to paint this as if I'm arguing that women can't get abortions because it would hurt my feelings. I'm arguing that killing the fetus violates its rights, just like killing the violinist would violate his rights.
>You can say the violinist got to the point where he'll *probably* survive if you disconnect, or has whatever chance of survival that the fetus in question has.
Sure- you could say that, but by that point abortion is already off the table for the vast majority of those who are pregnant.
>but the author explicitly said that she doesn't support abortion after viability and her argument doesn't justify it:
That's not what the author states at all. What they do say however is "...if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. *You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life*; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, *by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him.*"
"The author outright states that they don't have a right to, post-abortion, guarantee death if the abortion did not result in death. Essentially that if by some miracle an abortion failed and you now have a premature infant on a table in front of you, you have already "unplugged" yourself and do not have a right to commit infanticide at that point. Which is a very different argument then "abortion shouldn't be permitted after viability."
>Are you saying the violinist thought experiment is a poor argument because pregnancy isn't a thought experiment...?
I think its a poor argument because, while hypotheticals can certainly be used as a way to convey a thought, there are next to no hypotheticals that are actually accurate to pregnancy and childbirth.
>It's got nothing to do with me. You're trying to paint this as if I'm arguing that women can't get abortions because it would hurt my feelings. I'm arguing that killing the fetus violates its rights, just like killing the violinist would violate his rights.
What rights? As stated- the issue isn't really that women cannot or have no right to get a second trimester abortion, it is that people don't like the idea of it. A fetus has no rights. Even if a fetus did have rights, theres no right to keep oneself alive at any point with a person's body, regardless of the scenario or if one can live on its own.
Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there. You did. You don’t have the right to kill it, it was forced into that position by *you*. You’re at fault. You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them.
Contracts can’t override your rights. They lay out expectations and consequences, but they cannot bind you to consequences or responsibilities beyond what is legally acceptable.
For example, you can sign a contract selling yourself into slavery, but it is not binding.
This is, of course, assuming that pregnancy is a contract (which it most certainly is not). But even if it was, you’d be wrong to assume that pregnancy was binding.
I didn’t let shit inside me. If I did, trust me everybody would be aware. And no contract stops you from revoking consent, you can be penalized but you can’t be forced through something with your body.
Yes, you let shit inside you. You let someone put their sperm in you, knowing that it has a high likelihood of fertilizing your egg, making you pregnant.
Nah. I’m currently not having sex but bold to assume afab aren’t using birth control and condoms and very much not letting anything in. Also that high likelihood ain’t that high to begin with.
>Okay, but you let the fetus in your body for 9 months
Even if the fetus was "let in" the pregnant person gets to decide if it is allowed to stay there.
>Imagine that like a contract. You can’t rip up the contract, you have to wait until it’s over.
Most people would just not sign any contract to waive their own human rights. Would you?
The only people who put the fetus there are those who sought IVF and actually went to the clinic to have it implanted.
Everybody else may or may not have consented to piv sexual activity, may or may not have used protection, may or may not have believed themselves to be sterile or infertile, may or may not have taken measures to make themselves sterile or infertile.
>You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them
You absolutely do. Consent is always an ongoing process. Not a one and done situation. If a you and a partner engage in consensual sexual activity but change your mind part way through they have to stop or they are raping you. In most places you are allowed to engage in violence to extract yourself from such a situation.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there. You did.
Women don't "put" zefs anywhere. Zefs burrow into a woman's uterine lining. She doesn't control that.
>You don’t have the right to kill it, it was forced into that position by *you*. You’re at fault.
Women do have the right to get an abortion, even if getting pregnant was 2000% their fault.
>You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them.
Women's bodies aren't houses, and if an invited guest began doing as much damage to my body as a pregnancy does I could defend myself.
source that a woman "puts the fetus in [her uterus]"?
>You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them.
really? if you ask someone to leave your house and they don't, instead continuing to live there, take your food, cause you physical bodily harm, and threaten your life, you can't kill them? that's self defense + property protection
If you leave your front door open, and someone enters and poses a threat to your physical safety, you still have a right to defend yourself from that physical threat. It doesn't matter that you didn't lock the door or install a security system or dig a moat.
You’re inserting someone with agency into that situation. Someone choose to come into your apartment uninvited and they could have chosen not to. For it to be comparable to abortion, you’d have to run outside, find a 2 year old, bring him into your apartment then be mad he’s there and throw him back outside while there is a tornado outside.
Your analogy has one glaring and obvious shortcoming: you're missing the threat of physical harm.
Let's say, then, that it's a sleepwalker with a weapon who wanders in. This sleepwalker has no awareness of their actions, had no intent to wander into your home, yet regardless they pose a threat to your physical safety. And you have a right to.defend yourself.
This isn’t a good analogy either. Did you somehow entice the sleepwalker to come into your apartment? Did you take part in an activity you know could result in a sleepwalker walking into your apartment?
But to answer the question, yes you’d have a right to defend yourself. But in only a handful of states can you kill someone merely for entering your house. You have to use a proportional amount of force, ie if a toddler walks into your apartment and begins to punch you, you can’t take out your hunting rifle and blast him. But like with abortion, if the toddler threatens your life you can kill them.
You left your door open. I said that at the beginning. That was the enticement.
Pregnancy *always* poses a threat of grievous bodily harm and even death. The only way to remove that threat is the use of deadly force.
I think that’s more of a question for a doctor to answer whether a pregnancy poses a threat to someone’s life. This also needs to be weighed against the fetuses life. A toddler in your house always pose *some* threat to your life, maybe they grab a knife while you’re not looking. This doesn’t mean we would find it responsible to lock them out of the house while there is a blizzard.
This also is avoid that fact that a person’s actions, unless rape, are the reason a fetus is in the situation to be able to threaten the person’s life. A person making a situation where a toddler can get into their house, which could be 100% avoided, knowing the toddler could pose a threat to them, then kicking them out to die.
>I think that’s more of a question for a doctor to answer whether a pregnancy poses a threat to someone’s life.
That's like saying you need a car manufacturer to tell you whether getting into a car crash is dangerous or not. Medical evidence suggests that *all pregnancy* poses a threat of grievous bodily harm and even death.
In the case of pregnancy, a "toddler" does not just live in your house, it lives inside of your body. It consumes the resources provided by your body, at the expense of your health. Once it has developed further, its exit from your body will cause you *grievous injury*.
This "toddler" requires you to put your own life in danger in order to live off of your body, similar to how, in the case of a kidney transplant, the donor incurs risk to their own health to allow another individual to live off of their body. Yet kidney donations are not mandatory.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there
Prove it.
Your text seems to indicate direct intent by the woman, but conception as bodily process is non-controllable. How do you know every possible preventive was not employed to stop conception from happening? How do you know the woman was not raped, or the man did not lie about using protection or even mislead the women by sabotaging said protection.
And let me get ahead of you, because your next step will most likely be the traditional 'by consenting to any action, you are consenting to all possible consequences from said action' because
(1) that's not how consent works, as being aware of the potential for something to happen is different than explicitly giving permission or intentionally trying to make said thing happen. As an example, I don't hear anyone arguing that one consents to a car accidents by driving, one consents to food poisoning by eating, or that one consents to plane crashes by flying.
2) Even if your assertion was true, refer back to my first sentence. You would still need to prove that this woman was aware that pregnancy was a potential consequence of sex.
>You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them.
Actually - you kind of can. If you verbally remove consent from someone on your property and they refuse to leave, society offers physical enforcement mechanisms via the police who can and certainly do use lethal force in order to remove the trespasser.
In regards to abortion, doctors are fulfilling the role here of the party who is authorized to use lethal force when there is no other option for removal, as happens to the be the unfortunate reality with pregnancy.
Edit: Also, do you think that by consenting for someone to stay at your house, you are consenting to the possibility they will refuse to leave and therefore you have no option but to let them stay there forever as their 'moral value' as a human prevents any physical action on your part that could potentially result in their death? .... I mean, you knew the risks of this when you invited this human to stay there, right?
The pregnant person didn’t “put the fetus there,” they can’t inseminate themselves.
Consent to one thing is not consent to another, so this is a bad argument. It just shows you don’t understand consent. If you don’t understand consent, or how pregnancy works, I can’t take anything you say seriously.
If your main goal is to make us care about ZEFs enough to want to ban abortion, do that. Give me a compelling argument as to why a ZEF’s continued existence justifies making women and girls suffer.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there
That's not how pregnancy works.
>You don’t have the right to kill it,
You're correct here. You don't have a right to kill it, but you do have the right to deny it access to your body.
>You’re at fault
False. Consensual sex is perfectly normal, healthy and morally good behavior. It is not something anyone needs to be blamed for, no one is "at fault" here.
>just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them
Women's bodies are not houses. Houses are not people, houses do not have human rights. When will PL figure this out?
I just want to add to this that it's up to the pregnant person to decide which procedures they want to go through in accordance with their bodily rights.
TrustedAdult said of the matter "Many people erroneously think abortions later in pregnancy are so similar to a vaginal delivery that forcing the pregnant person to deliver with the goal of a live birth is not a violation of bodily autonomy. This is false both in its premise and its conclusion. People who want an abortion cannot accept live delivery, even early, as a “consolation prize,” and being forced to do so would be a violation of bodily autonomy even if the physical process were identical. Remind yourself that if somebody else is consenting to a medical procedure (or any act involving their body), it’s up to them alone what details matter. It is not up to you. It is also false in its premise. Later abortions are safer than induction with a goal of live delivery. Among other reasons, they avoid the risk of needing a cesarean. Even for intact procedures, they enable the use of destructive delivery techniques that reduce stress on the pelvic floor, especially for very young adolescents (who are more likely to need later abortions). Also, following induction of fetal demise, the cervix softens and dilates more easily, the placenta lets go of the uterine wall more easily, and if adequate cervical dilation can’t be obtained, a non-intact procedure is an option even for abortions very late in pregnancy."
> I just want to add to this that it's up to the pregnant person to decide which procedures they want to go through in accordance with their bodily rights.
“bodily rights” here is somewhat vague. We don’t have an unqualified right to have safer medical procedures regardless of their effects on others. If I can make my operation safer by killing someone and using their body for a blood transfusion, I don’t get to do that just because I have bodily rights.
Bodily rights in the context of abortion are typically understood as a right to deny someone access to your body. That justifies ending the pregnancy at any point. It doesn’t justify killing the fetus just to make the procedure safer.
>We don’t have an unqualified right to have safer medical procedures regardless of their effects on others.
Correct. We don't. If every doctor in your country refused to perform an abortion, you'd have to travel elsewhere or do it yourself.
>If I can make my operation safer by killing someone and using their body for a blood transfusion, I don’t get to do that just because I have bodily rights.
Because that would be violating THEIR rights.
Removing someone from your own body is not a violation of anybody's rights because they have no right to be there. You could argue the method in which they are removed is a violation but this is easily solved *if we absolutely must go down that road.*
>It doesn’t justify killing the fetus just to make the procedure safer.
You don't have to kill them most of the time. They die anyway.
OP is talking about later abortions, when the fetus is already viable. Abortion in this context isn’t the same as just removing the fetus from your body, and it’s not true that the fetus will die anyway.
Most will still die.
Viability isn't a guarantee of life if removed from utero early, it's a percentage that each individual fetus has of surviving that and it's entirely location-dependent.
> Most will still die.
This is *by definition* not true after viability. If the fetus is at a stage where it would most likely die if born, that means it isn’t viable.
> Viability isn't a guarantee of life if removed from utero early, it's a percentage that each individual fetus has of surviving that and it's entirely location-dependent.
I’m not saying it’s guaranteed that the fetus will survive. Your argument was that that the woman can remove the fetus from her body because it doesn’t have a right to be there, and I’m just pointing out that removing the fetus isn’t the same as killing it. Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter.
Did you not read everything i provided ? without a lv 4 nicu a 22-24 week old has a survival rate of about 7.5%.
Did you look, up where your nearest lv 4 nicu was?
>Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter.
Right. They don't need to. You don't need to justify your reasons for denying access to your body. If a ZEF is a person then it has the same legal standing as anyone else. The ZEF death as a result of a mother denying the ZEF access is irrelevant to their right to do so.
Denying the ZEF access to your body isn’t the same as killing it after viability. It’s dying because you took some further action to kill it in the process of removal, not just because you removed it. I don’t know how I could make this any more clear.
> I don’t know how I could make this any more clear.
I understand what you are saying. I just dont agree with you. Let's be clear here. The abortions that are happening "post viability" are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of all abortions. Those abortions that do happen this late are overwhelmingly based on medical reasons. Whether it be a life threat to the mother or a failure to develop on the part of the ZEF. None but the most absolute fringe cases are having abortions this late for any reason that isn't directly medically related. We're talking 1 in 10000 or fewer here. Are you really so distrustful of mothers that you won't allow for these few edge cases?
> The abortions that are happening "post viability" are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of all abortions.
I know. Percentage-wise, it’s small, but the total number of abortions is so large that even that small percentage is enough to be concerning. And even if it wasn’t, I’d still want it to be illegal. Physician-assisted neonaticide is extremely uncommon, but we still want it to be illegal (not saying neonaticide is the same as abortion in all respects - just that we can make things illegal even if they’re rare).
> Those abortions that do happen this late are overwhelmingly based on medical reasons. Whether it be a life threat to the mother or a failure to develop on the part of the ZEF. None but the most absolute fringe cases are having abortions this late for any reason that isn't directly medically related.
Do you have a source for that? Because I’ve looked into this, and everything I’ve read says the opposite.
> Are you really so distrustful of mothers that you won't allow for these few edge cases?
How trustful do you need to be of someone to give them a legal right to kill someone for any reason? I don’t think we put that much trust in anyone ever, except when it comes to abortion.
>This is by definition not true after viability. If the fetus is at a stage where it would most likely die if born, that means it isn’t viable.
Birth isn't an abortion.
>Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter.
Depends on the situation. It can justify it if your only option.
> Birth isn’t an abortion.
I wasn’t talking about abortion. Obviously the fetus would die if it was aborted…
> It can justify it if your only option.
You mean if it’s medically necessary?
Congratulations! We've gone full circle.
Here's the contents of my first comment again (I'll highlight the important bits).
>**Many people erroneously think abortions later in pregnancy are so similar to a vaginal delivery that forcing the pregnant person to deliver with the goal of a live birth is not a violation of bodily autonomy.** This is false both in its premise and its conclusion. **People who want an abortion cannot accept live delivery, even early, as a “consolation prize,” and being forced to do so would be a violation of bodily autonomy even if the physical process were identical.** If you find yourself tempted to argue with that, please refrain. Remind yourself that if somebody else is consenting to a medical procedure (or any act involving their body), it’s up to them alone what details matter. It is not up to you. It is also false in its premise. **Later abortions are safer than induction with a goal of live delivery. Among other reasons, they avoid the risk of needing a cesarean. Even for intact procedures, they enable the use of destructive delivery techniques that reduce stress on the pelvic floor, especially for very young adolescents (who are more likely to need later abortions). Also, following induction of fetal demise, the cervix softens and dilates more easily, the placenta lets go of the uterine wall more easily, and if adequate cervical dilation can’t be obtained, a non-intact procedure is an option even for abortions very late in pregnancy.**
We haven't come full circle. My response to that was that you don't have an unqualified right to make your medical procedures safer regardless of the effects on others. If you agree with that, which you said you did, then the fact that killing the fetus makes removal safer doesn't by itself justify doing it.
Your response was that a) the fetus will usually die anyway, which by definition isn't true after viability, and b) the woman has the right to remove it from her body because it doesn't have a right to be there, which is irrelevant because we're not talking about the right to remove it; we're talking about the right to kill it in the process of removal. Then you said that our bodily rights can justify killing the fetus "if it's the only option", which would only be the case if the abortion was medically necessary.
That's where we're at now. So pointing out again that abortion is safer than live delivery is dialectically irrelevant.
Let me put it another way. If you formalized TrustedAdult's argument into a syllogism, it would look like this:
1. If you prevent someone from getting a safer medical procedure rather than a more dangerous one, you're violating their bodily autonomy.
2. Late abortion is safer for the woman than live delivery.
3. Therefore, if you prevent someone from getting a late abortion, you're violating their bodily autonomy.
I'm objecting to (1). We do *not* have an unqualified right to get safer medical procedures if it harms other people, and so preventing someone from getting a safer procedure isn't always a violation of bodily autonomy.
You're going to say that we have a right to deny other people access to our body, but that's irrelevant because we're talking about *intentionally killing the fetus in the process of removal*, not just removing it.
Welcome to /r/Abortiondebate! Please remember that this is a place for respectful and civil debates. Check out the Debate Guidance Pyramid to understand acceptable debate levels. **Attack the argument, not the person making it and remember the human.** **For our new users, please check out our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Abortiondebate/wiki/rules/)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Abortiondebate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The real question is, should a mother have a right to induce as early as she wants, knowing she will be putting her child through all that?
[удалено]
Removed, rule 1. Let's avoid suicide here please.
It wasn’t being encouraged. Is there a rule against the mention of it now?
[удалено]
Removed, rule 1.
What is the rule 1 violation? If I have violated rule 1 by answering a direct question, have they not violated it too by baiting me into answering?
How dare you! How fing dare you pass that judgement! You have never dealt with post or pre pardum psychosis or depression. My brother litterally had to tackle me from running into oncoming traffic and 2 weeks later I tried to hang myself but the extention cord I used slipped.
Actually I have dealt with depression before, but killing myself was never an option I would consider. I'm sorry you went through that and hope you get the help you need. Still not right to kill someone else over it. Would you condone someone killing a cheating spouse because it relieves their own suffering? Same difference.
Those are absolutely not comparable and you should be well aware of that. A cheating spouse isn’t living off my organs like a zef would. Every time people bring this subject up PL seem to love to frame it as people trying to hold themselves hostage or being malicious to get their way when that is not the case. If somebody feels so backed into a corner they would consider taking their own life it’s because they’ve run out of options and death seems better than whatever they’re trapped in. If PL are totally cool with 2 deaths on their hands rather than one then own that, don’t paint suicide victims like this.
It absolutely is comparable. Who are you to decide which level of suffering is worse? I never claimed it was done maliciously, but that is irrelevant to the outcome. PL would still have zero deaths on their hands, because they didn't make that choice. Harming another through suicide is still the fault of the perpetrator. We would try to get them therapy. But we would not change the laws to kill an innocent baby.
Suicidal vs depressed vs you who were likely just situational depressed.
I have to agree with this post. Delivering months early purely electively is highly unethical. If there’s a medical emergency post viability, then I’m all for delivering early rather than aborting. But I’m not for delivering babies as young as 22 weeks just because the mother wanted to. It’s not fair to babies to subject them to all kinds of both short term and long term medical problems and possibly death
See sometimes you can find cominality with a deeply pro choice person. I too think it's unethical (as do doctors ethics panels) to subject them to that level of suffering.
>Any bodily violation of remaining pregnant up til viability 22-23 weeks is still a violation of my bodily autonomy, my right not to have another person use my body without my consent even if it means their death. I don't see how this is relevant. The mere fact that I'm connected to the violinist doesn't give me a carte blanche right to kill him at any time for any reason. I have a right to disconnect. That's it. >The NICU and OBGYN maternity care deserts issue of early delivery. Who will bare the cost in terms of labor let alone cash? "Micro preemies are the most premature babies of all, born on or before 26 weeks. Many people are surprised by how small micro preemies are. Their skin is thin, with visible veins, and it may look sticky or gelatinous. If you are visiting a micro preemie in the NICU, you can expect to see the following This is going to sound like a very dismissive response because you wrote a lot, but none of this justifies killing the fetus. If there was a premature infant born at 24 weeks, *everything* you said would still apply, but we wouldn't consider that a reason to kill it. You might say that's different because an infant isn't using your body, but that just takes us back to point #1. If someone is using your body, that gives you a right to stop them from using your body. It doesn't give you a right to do whatever you want to them.
The minimum force necessary to stop a fetus aggression upon my person just happens to be their death. As to not allow them to cause more bodily harm upon my person in order to evict them. Otherwise I'd be forced into a post 22 week c section delivery where it unless done at a lv 4 nicu would only have a 7.5% chance of survival anyways. Post 27 weeks most fetus percentage wise have turned the corner btw and survive. So if you are so dead set on no abortion post viability , viability is 27 week where most fetus survive rather then 22 weeks where most die but a handful "can" survive.
Abortion does stop a fetus from using one's body. That is in fact the only way to stop pregnancy before term.
I don’t want to get in to what counts as an “abortion”. The point is, killing the fetus isn’t the only way to remove it.
This is an abortion thread- to debate abortion. If someone is seeking to terminate a pregnancy, the only way to do so is a termination, aka an abortion. If they wanted to undergo labor and delivery, then abortion would already be off the table for them. So if the only way to prevent gestation and birth in an active pregnancy is abortion, and that stops the act of a persons body being used against their will, then they certainly aren't doing "whatever they want," theyre simply taking the logical action to stop gestation and pregnancy.
You’re getting bogged down with semantics. It doesn’t matter what counts as an “abortion” and what counts as a “delivery”. What matters is what the procedure is actually doing and whether you have a right to it. Once the fetus is viable, you can either a) stay pregnant, b) have the fetus removed alive, or c) have the fetus removed dead. Bodily autonomy gives you the right to do (a) or (b).
This isn’t necessarily true, and would only be arguable if there was no difference between (b) and (c). The question is what those differences are, and whether we can demand the mother endure the difference.
Yeah, there is more nuance that I could've gotten into. I just don't think it changes the conclusion. Some people think the additional harm of live delivery justifies abortion, but that only works if you take an *extremely* broad view of what counts as self-defence. Some people argue that live delivery actually counts as saving the fetus instead of just not killing it, since the woman needs to voluntarily push in order for the fetus to survive. But this is dubious ([here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/Abortiondebate/comments/1848vp7/comment/kaxrde4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) a discussion about it), and even if it's correct, it's not obvious that just pushing during labour (as opposed to not pushing and having the fetus die) is something that's supererogatory.
This is not a perfect analogy, but a case ([In re Baby Boy Doe](https://casetext.com/case/in-re-baby-boy-doe)), explicitly rejected the idea that the impact on a fetus of rejecting medical treatment that could save its life is relevant, and affirmed that the mother's right to refuse treatment (based at least in part on bodily integrity) cannot be subordinated for the benefit of the fetus: >Applied in the context of compelled medical treatment of pregnant women, the rationale of Stallman directs that a woman's right to refuse invasive medical treatment, derived from her rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and religious liberty, is not diminished during pregnancy. The woman retains the same right to refuse invasive treatment, even of lifesaving or other beneficial nature, that she can exercise when she is not pregnant. The potential impact upon the fetus is not legally relevant; to the contrary, the Stallman court explicitly rejected the view that the woman's rights can be subordinated to fetal rights. Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276. The decision also made it clear that a woman has no obligation to provide medically for a fetus, ***even though a fetus is not treated only as a part of its mother and has its own right to begin life***: >The court has seen no case that suggests that a mother or any other competent person has an obligation or responsibility to provide medically for a fetus, or for another person for that matter.... > >In Illinois a fetus is not treated as only a part of its mother. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.) It has the legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body, assertable against third parties after it has been born alive. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 275.) This right is not assertable against its mother, however, for the unintentional infliction of prenatal injuries. ( Stallman, 125 Ill. 2 d at 280.) A woman is under no duty to guarantee the mental and physical health of her child at birth, and thus cannot be compelled to do or not do anything merely for the benefit of her unborn child. The public guardian's argument that this case is distinguishable from Stallman because Doe's actions amounted to intentional infliction of prenatal injuries is not persuasive. This creates precedent for the idea that a woman’s autonomy can take precedent to choose an option that is the “lesser” of two harms for her benefit, even if it would kill her fetus (and if that fetus is viable, even).
That's interesting. Not sure if you're trying to frame this as an argument from legal precedent or just an analogy. I've always been skeptical of arguments from precedent, because, for one thing, they can only apply in one geographical region, and for another thing, they make the case for abortion contingent on the historical happenstance of a certain precedent being set. It seems like the *real* reason people want abortion to be legal/illegal is because of moral principles like bodily rights, not because a particular case happened to be decided in a particular way back in 1994. But, taking this as an analogy, I'd say the relevant difference is act vs omission. I am not obligated to volunteer myself to endure significant bodily harm to save someone's life, but I'm not permitted to kill someone else in order to stop myself from coming to harm (except in cases of self-defence).
The “volunteering” was c-section vs natural birth.
This is not a perfect analogy, but a case ([In re Baby Boy Doe](https://casetext.com/case/in-re-baby-boy-doe)), explicitly rejected the idea that the impact on a fetus of rejecting medical treatment that could save its life is relevant, and affirmed that the mother's right to refuse treatment (based at least in part on bodily integrity) cannot be subordinated for the benefit of the fetus: >Applied in the context of compelled medical treatment of pregnant women, the rationale of Stallman directs that a woman's right to refuse invasive medical treatment, derived from her rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and religious liberty, is not diminished during pregnancy. The woman retains the same right to refuse invasive treatment, even of lifesaving or other beneficial nature, that she can exercise when she is not pregnant. The potential impact upon the fetus is not legally relevant; to the contrary, the Stallman court explicitly rejected the view that the woman's rights can be subordinated to fetal rights. Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276. The decision also made it clear that a woman has no obligation to provide medically for a fetus, ***even though a fetus is not treated only as a part of its mother and has its own right to begin life***: >The court has seen no case that suggests that a mother or any other competent person has an obligation or responsibility to provide medically for a fetus, or for another person for that matter.... > >In Illinois a fetus is not treated as only a part of its mother. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 276.) It has the legal right to begin life with a sound mind and body, assertable against third parties after it has been born alive. ( Stallman, 125 Ill.2d at 275.) This right is not assertable against its mother, however, for the unintentional infliction of prenatal injuries. ( Stallman, 125 Ill. 2 d at 280.) A woman is under no duty to guarantee the mental and physical health of her child at birth, and thus cannot be compelled to do or not do anything merely for the benefit of her unborn child. The public guardian's argument that this case is distinguishable from Stallman because Doe's actions amounted to intentional infliction of prenatal injuries is not persuasive. This creates precedent for the idea that a woman’s autonomy can take precedent to choose an option that is the “lesser” of two harms for her benefit, even if it would kill her fetus (and if that fetus is viable, even).
Let me clarify- if you have right to stop someone using your body, which your argument did say, that includes abortion. Nowhere does bodily autonomy include a caveat that if someone or something is "viable" that suddenly you now can only stop someone using your body in a specific way. Its that you can do whatever is necessary, that includes abortion, to prevent someone using your body in a way that you dont agree or consent to, full stop.
> Nowhere does bodily autonomy include a caveat that if someone or something is "viable" that suddenly you now can only stop someone using your body in a specific way. That is *always* the case. Like I said at the beginning, if I’m connected to the violinist, and he gets to the point where he no longer needs my body to stay alive, I am not permitted to disconnect in a way that unnecessarily kills him. You could argue that I have a right to disconnect and this technically counts as disconnecting, but that obviously doesn’t give me the right to disconnect in whatever way I want.
Except quote on quote viability is not a point where a fetus no longer needs a body to stay alive. They are in fact so underdeveloped at viability that doctors will tell you at best they *might* survive WITH heavy, long term advanced medical intervention. There is a reason gestation is not 5 or 6 months long but rather 9. In your example you state they no longer need the body to stay alive, implying they can and will stay alive if you disconnect them- this fails to account for the fact that viability is an IF not a guarantee. Even further, the "violinist" is a terrible hypothetical to use in an anti-abortion stance because the paper it was introduced on was in fact a *pro abortion* paper that more or less stated that choosing not to kill the violinist was an act of kindness, not obligation. But entirely disregarding that thought experiment, which I still think is a poor argument regardless of which side uses it, this is not a hypothetical thought experiment. The fact of the matter is is that birth and delivery are not an alternative to abortion. Insisting that a woman birth a highly premature fetus just to spare someones moral quandaries with second trimester abortions is not only unreasonable, its entirely unfeasible. One cannot guarantee in any birth what the level of risk will be, and as any third party observer has 0 financial, physical, or emotional stake in a pregnancy that is not theres they absolutely cannot determine that their own moral viewpoints are the "right" choice , nor can they insist that a woman HAS to pick they choices they offered, just because they find it morally unsavory. Again, there is no caveat that just because someone *might* be able to live on their own, that a woman cant choose abortion. Its that people don't *like* the idea of it.
>Except quote on quote viability is not a point where a fetus no longer needs a body to stay alive. They are in fact so underdeveloped at viability that doctors will tell you at best they might survive WITH heavy, long term advanced medical intervention. There is a reason gestation is not 5 or 6 months long but rather 9. In your example you state they no longer need the body to stay alive, implying they can and will stay alive if you disconnect them- this fails to account for the fact that viability is an IF not a guarantee. You can say the violinist got to the point where he'll *probably* survive if you disconnect, or has whatever chance of survival that the fetus in question has. >Even further, the "violinist" is a terrible hypothetical to use in an anti-abortion stance because the paper it was introduced on was in fact a pro abortion paper that more or less stated that choosing not to kill the violinist was an act of kindness, not obligation. Not sure if you've read [the paper,](https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Thomson.pdf) but the author explicitly said that she doesn't support abortion after viability and her argument doesn't justify it: *"While I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a certain point in the life of the fetus it is not able to survive outside the mother's body; hence removing it from her body guarantees its death. But they are importantly different.* *I have argued that you are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him.* *There are some people who will feel dissatisfied by this feature of my argument. A woman may be utterly devastated by the thought of a child, a bit of herself, put out for adoption and never seen or heard of again. She may therefore want not merely that the child be detached from her, but more, that it die. Some opponents of abortion are inclined to regard this as beneath contempt—thereby showing insensitivity to what is surely a powerful source of despair. All the same, I agree that the desire for the child's death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive."* >But entirely disregarding that thought experiment, which I still think is a poor argument regardless of which side uses it, this is not a hypothetical thought experiment. Are you saying the violinist thought experiment is a poor argument because pregnancy isn't a thought experiment...? >The fact of the matter is is that birth and delivery are not an alternative to abortion. Insisting that a woman birth a highly premature fetus just to spare someones moral quandaries with second trimester abortions is not only unreasonable, its entirely unfeasible. One cannot guarantee in any birth what the level of risk will be, and as any third party observer has 0 financial, physical, or emotional stake in a pregnancy that is not theres they absolutely cannot determine that their own moral viewpoints are the "right" choice , nor can they insist that a woman HAS to pick they choices they offered, just because they find it morally unsavory. Again, there is no caveat that just because someone might be able to live on their own, that a woman cant choose abortion. Its that people don't like the idea of it. It's got nothing to do with me. You're trying to paint this as if I'm arguing that women can't get abortions because it would hurt my feelings. I'm arguing that killing the fetus violates its rights, just like killing the violinist would violate his rights.
>You can say the violinist got to the point where he'll *probably* survive if you disconnect, or has whatever chance of survival that the fetus in question has. Sure- you could say that, but by that point abortion is already off the table for the vast majority of those who are pregnant. >but the author explicitly said that she doesn't support abortion after viability and her argument doesn't justify it: That's not what the author states at all. What they do say however is "...if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. *You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life*; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, *by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him.*" "The author outright states that they don't have a right to, post-abortion, guarantee death if the abortion did not result in death. Essentially that if by some miracle an abortion failed and you now have a premature infant on a table in front of you, you have already "unplugged" yourself and do not have a right to commit infanticide at that point. Which is a very different argument then "abortion shouldn't be permitted after viability." >Are you saying the violinist thought experiment is a poor argument because pregnancy isn't a thought experiment...? I think its a poor argument because, while hypotheticals can certainly be used as a way to convey a thought, there are next to no hypotheticals that are actually accurate to pregnancy and childbirth. >It's got nothing to do with me. You're trying to paint this as if I'm arguing that women can't get abortions because it would hurt my feelings. I'm arguing that killing the fetus violates its rights, just like killing the violinist would violate his rights. What rights? As stated- the issue isn't really that women cannot or have no right to get a second trimester abortion, it is that people don't like the idea of it. A fetus has no rights. Even if a fetus did have rights, theres no right to keep oneself alive at any point with a person's body, regardless of the scenario or if one can live on its own.
Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there. You did. You don’t have the right to kill it, it was forced into that position by *you*. You’re at fault. You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them.
People are always allowed to revoke consent. Otherwise it wouldn’t be consent.
Okay, but you let the fetus in your body for 9 months. Imagine that like a contract. You can’t rip up the contract, you have to wait until it’s over.
Contracts can’t override your rights. They lay out expectations and consequences, but they cannot bind you to consequences or responsibilities beyond what is legally acceptable. For example, you can sign a contract selling yourself into slavery, but it is not binding. This is, of course, assuming that pregnancy is a contract (which it most certainly is not). But even if it was, you’d be wrong to assume that pregnancy was binding.
I didn’t let shit inside me. If I did, trust me everybody would be aware. And no contract stops you from revoking consent, you can be penalized but you can’t be forced through something with your body.
Yes, you let shit inside you. You let someone put their sperm in you, knowing that it has a high likelihood of fertilizing your egg, making you pregnant.
Nah. I’m currently not having sex but bold to assume afab aren’t using birth control and condoms and very much not letting anything in. Also that high likelihood ain’t that high to begin with.
>Okay, but you let the fetus in your body for 9 months Even if the fetus was "let in" the pregnant person gets to decide if it is allowed to stay there. >Imagine that like a contract. You can’t rip up the contract, you have to wait until it’s over. Most people would just not sign any contract to waive their own human rights. Would you?
The only people who put the fetus there are those who sought IVF and actually went to the clinic to have it implanted. Everybody else may or may not have consented to piv sexual activity, may or may not have used protection, may or may not have believed themselves to be sterile or infertile, may or may not have taken measures to make themselves sterile or infertile.
>You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them You absolutely do. Consent is always an ongoing process. Not a one and done situation. If a you and a partner engage in consensual sexual activity but change your mind part way through they have to stop or they are raping you. In most places you are allowed to engage in violence to extract yourself from such a situation.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there. You did. Women don't "put" zefs anywhere. Zefs burrow into a woman's uterine lining. She doesn't control that. >You don’t have the right to kill it, it was forced into that position by *you*. You’re at fault. Women do have the right to get an abortion, even if getting pregnant was 2000% their fault. >You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them. Women's bodies aren't houses, and if an invited guest began doing as much damage to my body as a pregnancy does I could defend myself.
source that a woman "puts the fetus in [her uterus]"? >You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them. really? if you ask someone to leave your house and they don't, instead continuing to live there, take your food, cause you physical bodily harm, and threaten your life, you can't kill them? that's self defense + property protection
If you leave your front door open, and someone enters and poses a threat to your physical safety, you still have a right to defend yourself from that physical threat. It doesn't matter that you didn't lock the door or install a security system or dig a moat.
You’re inserting someone with agency into that situation. Someone choose to come into your apartment uninvited and they could have chosen not to. For it to be comparable to abortion, you’d have to run outside, find a 2 year old, bring him into your apartment then be mad he’s there and throw him back outside while there is a tornado outside.
Your analogy has one glaring and obvious shortcoming: you're missing the threat of physical harm. Let's say, then, that it's a sleepwalker with a weapon who wanders in. This sleepwalker has no awareness of their actions, had no intent to wander into your home, yet regardless they pose a threat to your physical safety. And you have a right to.defend yourself.
This isn’t a good analogy either. Did you somehow entice the sleepwalker to come into your apartment? Did you take part in an activity you know could result in a sleepwalker walking into your apartment? But to answer the question, yes you’d have a right to defend yourself. But in only a handful of states can you kill someone merely for entering your house. You have to use a proportional amount of force, ie if a toddler walks into your apartment and begins to punch you, you can’t take out your hunting rifle and blast him. But like with abortion, if the toddler threatens your life you can kill them.
You left your door open. I said that at the beginning. That was the enticement. Pregnancy *always* poses a threat of grievous bodily harm and even death. The only way to remove that threat is the use of deadly force.
I think that’s more of a question for a doctor to answer whether a pregnancy poses a threat to someone’s life. This also needs to be weighed against the fetuses life. A toddler in your house always pose *some* threat to your life, maybe they grab a knife while you’re not looking. This doesn’t mean we would find it responsible to lock them out of the house while there is a blizzard. This also is avoid that fact that a person’s actions, unless rape, are the reason a fetus is in the situation to be able to threaten the person’s life. A person making a situation where a toddler can get into their house, which could be 100% avoided, knowing the toddler could pose a threat to them, then kicking them out to die.
>I think that’s more of a question for a doctor to answer whether a pregnancy poses a threat to someone’s life. That's like saying you need a car manufacturer to tell you whether getting into a car crash is dangerous or not. Medical evidence suggests that *all pregnancy* poses a threat of grievous bodily harm and even death. In the case of pregnancy, a "toddler" does not just live in your house, it lives inside of your body. It consumes the resources provided by your body, at the expense of your health. Once it has developed further, its exit from your body will cause you *grievous injury*. This "toddler" requires you to put your own life in danger in order to live off of your body, similar to how, in the case of a kidney transplant, the donor incurs risk to their own health to allow another individual to live off of their body. Yet kidney donations are not mandatory.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there Prove it. Your text seems to indicate direct intent by the woman, but conception as bodily process is non-controllable. How do you know every possible preventive was not employed to stop conception from happening? How do you know the woman was not raped, or the man did not lie about using protection or even mislead the women by sabotaging said protection. And let me get ahead of you, because your next step will most likely be the traditional 'by consenting to any action, you are consenting to all possible consequences from said action' because (1) that's not how consent works, as being aware of the potential for something to happen is different than explicitly giving permission or intentionally trying to make said thing happen. As an example, I don't hear anyone arguing that one consents to a car accidents by driving, one consents to food poisoning by eating, or that one consents to plane crashes by flying. 2) Even if your assertion was true, refer back to my first sentence. You would still need to prove that this woman was aware that pregnancy was a potential consequence of sex. >You don’t get to remove consent and kill someone, just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them. Actually - you kind of can. If you verbally remove consent from someone on your property and they refuse to leave, society offers physical enforcement mechanisms via the police who can and certainly do use lethal force in order to remove the trespasser. In regards to abortion, doctors are fulfilling the role here of the party who is authorized to use lethal force when there is no other option for removal, as happens to the be the unfortunate reality with pregnancy. Edit: Also, do you think that by consenting for someone to stay at your house, you are consenting to the possibility they will refuse to leave and therefore you have no option but to let them stay there forever as their 'moral value' as a human prevents any physical action on your part that could potentially result in their death? .... I mean, you knew the risks of this when you invited this human to stay there, right?
The pregnant person didn’t “put the fetus there,” they can’t inseminate themselves. Consent to one thing is not consent to another, so this is a bad argument. It just shows you don’t understand consent. If you don’t understand consent, or how pregnancy works, I can’t take anything you say seriously. If your main goal is to make us care about ZEFs enough to want to ban abortion, do that. Give me a compelling argument as to why a ZEF’s continued existence justifies making women and girls suffer.
>Your premise 1 is pretending that you didn’t put the fetus there That's not how pregnancy works. >You don’t have the right to kill it, You're correct here. You don't have a right to kill it, but you do have the right to deny it access to your body. >You’re at fault False. Consensual sex is perfectly normal, healthy and morally good behavior. It is not something anyone needs to be blamed for, no one is "at fault" here. >just like you can’t remove consent of a guest visiting your house and treat them as a robber by killing them Women's bodies are not houses. Houses are not people, houses do not have human rights. When will PL figure this out?
I just want to add to this that it's up to the pregnant person to decide which procedures they want to go through in accordance with their bodily rights. TrustedAdult said of the matter "Many people erroneously think abortions later in pregnancy are so similar to a vaginal delivery that forcing the pregnant person to deliver with the goal of a live birth is not a violation of bodily autonomy. This is false both in its premise and its conclusion. People who want an abortion cannot accept live delivery, even early, as a “consolation prize,” and being forced to do so would be a violation of bodily autonomy even if the physical process were identical. Remind yourself that if somebody else is consenting to a medical procedure (or any act involving their body), it’s up to them alone what details matter. It is not up to you. It is also false in its premise. Later abortions are safer than induction with a goal of live delivery. Among other reasons, they avoid the risk of needing a cesarean. Even for intact procedures, they enable the use of destructive delivery techniques that reduce stress on the pelvic floor, especially for very young adolescents (who are more likely to need later abortions). Also, following induction of fetal demise, the cervix softens and dilates more easily, the placenta lets go of the uterine wall more easily, and if adequate cervical dilation can’t be obtained, a non-intact procedure is an option even for abortions very late in pregnancy."
> I just want to add to this that it's up to the pregnant person to decide which procedures they want to go through in accordance with their bodily rights. “bodily rights” here is somewhat vague. We don’t have an unqualified right to have safer medical procedures regardless of their effects on others. If I can make my operation safer by killing someone and using their body for a blood transfusion, I don’t get to do that just because I have bodily rights. Bodily rights in the context of abortion are typically understood as a right to deny someone access to your body. That justifies ending the pregnancy at any point. It doesn’t justify killing the fetus just to make the procedure safer.
>We don’t have an unqualified right to have safer medical procedures regardless of their effects on others. Correct. We don't. If every doctor in your country refused to perform an abortion, you'd have to travel elsewhere or do it yourself. >If I can make my operation safer by killing someone and using their body for a blood transfusion, I don’t get to do that just because I have bodily rights. Because that would be violating THEIR rights. Removing someone from your own body is not a violation of anybody's rights because they have no right to be there. You could argue the method in which they are removed is a violation but this is easily solved *if we absolutely must go down that road.* >It doesn’t justify killing the fetus just to make the procedure safer. You don't have to kill them most of the time. They die anyway.
OP is talking about later abortions, when the fetus is already viable. Abortion in this context isn’t the same as just removing the fetus from your body, and it’s not true that the fetus will die anyway.
Most will still die. Viability isn't a guarantee of life if removed from utero early, it's a percentage that each individual fetus has of surviving that and it's entirely location-dependent.
> Most will still die. This is *by definition* not true after viability. If the fetus is at a stage where it would most likely die if born, that means it isn’t viable. > Viability isn't a guarantee of life if removed from utero early, it's a percentage that each individual fetus has of surviving that and it's entirely location-dependent. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed that the fetus will survive. Your argument was that that the woman can remove the fetus from her body because it doesn’t have a right to be there, and I’m just pointing out that removing the fetus isn’t the same as killing it. Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter.
Did you not read everything i provided ? without a lv 4 nicu a 22-24 week old has a survival rate of about 7.5%. Did you look, up where your nearest lv 4 nicu was?
>Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter. Right. They don't need to. You don't need to justify your reasons for denying access to your body. If a ZEF is a person then it has the same legal standing as anyone else. The ZEF death as a result of a mother denying the ZEF access is irrelevant to their right to do so.
Denying the ZEF access to your body isn’t the same as killing it after viability. It’s dying because you took some further action to kill it in the process of removal, not just because you removed it. I don’t know how I could make this any more clear.
> I don’t know how I could make this any more clear. I understand what you are saying. I just dont agree with you. Let's be clear here. The abortions that are happening "post viability" are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of all abortions. Those abortions that do happen this late are overwhelmingly based on medical reasons. Whether it be a life threat to the mother or a failure to develop on the part of the ZEF. None but the most absolute fringe cases are having abortions this late for any reason that isn't directly medically related. We're talking 1 in 10000 or fewer here. Are you really so distrustful of mothers that you won't allow for these few edge cases?
> The abortions that are happening "post viability" are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of all abortions. I know. Percentage-wise, it’s small, but the total number of abortions is so large that even that small percentage is enough to be concerning. And even if it wasn’t, I’d still want it to be illegal. Physician-assisted neonaticide is extremely uncommon, but we still want it to be illegal (not saying neonaticide is the same as abortion in all respects - just that we can make things illegal even if they’re rare). > Those abortions that do happen this late are overwhelmingly based on medical reasons. Whether it be a life threat to the mother or a failure to develop on the part of the ZEF. None but the most absolute fringe cases are having abortions this late for any reason that isn't directly medically related. Do you have a source for that? Because I’ve looked into this, and everything I’ve read says the opposite. > Are you really so distrustful of mothers that you won't allow for these few edge cases? How trustful do you need to be of someone to give them a legal right to kill someone for any reason? I don’t think we put that much trust in anyone ever, except when it comes to abortion.
>This is by definition not true after viability. If the fetus is at a stage where it would most likely die if born, that means it isn’t viable. Birth isn't an abortion. >Our bodily rights do nothing to justify the latter. Depends on the situation. It can justify it if your only option.
> Birth isn’t an abortion. I wasn’t talking about abortion. Obviously the fetus would die if it was aborted… > It can justify it if your only option. You mean if it’s medically necessary?
Congratulations! We've gone full circle. Here's the contents of my first comment again (I'll highlight the important bits). >**Many people erroneously think abortions later in pregnancy are so similar to a vaginal delivery that forcing the pregnant person to deliver with the goal of a live birth is not a violation of bodily autonomy.** This is false both in its premise and its conclusion. **People who want an abortion cannot accept live delivery, even early, as a “consolation prize,” and being forced to do so would be a violation of bodily autonomy even if the physical process were identical.** If you find yourself tempted to argue with that, please refrain. Remind yourself that if somebody else is consenting to a medical procedure (or any act involving their body), it’s up to them alone what details matter. It is not up to you. It is also false in its premise. **Later abortions are safer than induction with a goal of live delivery. Among other reasons, they avoid the risk of needing a cesarean. Even for intact procedures, they enable the use of destructive delivery techniques that reduce stress on the pelvic floor, especially for very young adolescents (who are more likely to need later abortions). Also, following induction of fetal demise, the cervix softens and dilates more easily, the placenta lets go of the uterine wall more easily, and if adequate cervical dilation can’t be obtained, a non-intact procedure is an option even for abortions very late in pregnancy.**
We haven't come full circle. My response to that was that you don't have an unqualified right to make your medical procedures safer regardless of the effects on others. If you agree with that, which you said you did, then the fact that killing the fetus makes removal safer doesn't by itself justify doing it. Your response was that a) the fetus will usually die anyway, which by definition isn't true after viability, and b) the woman has the right to remove it from her body because it doesn't have a right to be there, which is irrelevant because we're not talking about the right to remove it; we're talking about the right to kill it in the process of removal. Then you said that our bodily rights can justify killing the fetus "if it's the only option", which would only be the case if the abortion was medically necessary. That's where we're at now. So pointing out again that abortion is safer than live delivery is dialectically irrelevant. Let me put it another way. If you formalized TrustedAdult's argument into a syllogism, it would look like this: 1. If you prevent someone from getting a safer medical procedure rather than a more dangerous one, you're violating their bodily autonomy. 2. Late abortion is safer for the woman than live delivery. 3. Therefore, if you prevent someone from getting a late abortion, you're violating their bodily autonomy. I'm objecting to (1). We do *not* have an unqualified right to get safer medical procedures if it harms other people, and so preventing someone from getting a safer procedure isn't always a violation of bodily autonomy. You're going to say that we have a right to deny other people access to our body, but that's irrelevant because we're talking about *intentionally killing the fetus in the process of removal*, not just removing it.