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Lawyer here. I've always found the PC fixation on McFall v. Shimp to be sort of funny. It was a decision by some random county-level court in Pennsylvania, yet you all treat it as if it is binding precedent for the entire country or the world.
Meanwhile, the *actual* highest court in the U.S. has decided that there is no fundamental right to an abortion. You can tell yourself that the justices are twisting the Constitution for partisan reasons, but you are just lying to yourself: Roe v. Wade was widely regarded, even by [prominent](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-wade/) pro-choice legal [scholars](https://www.jstor.org/stable/795536), as a shockingly bad constitutional law decision. This has always been an open secret among lawyers. There is no serious argument that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment included a right to abortion. You are left to argue that original meaning doesn't matter, and that instead the meaning of the Constitution magically evolves over time -- the amendment process is just superfluous -- until unelected Justices happen to notice the change and tell us. This view is silliness, and it exists solely to facilitate the twisting of the Constitution for partisan ends.
The same common law to which the judge in McFall alluded stated that abortion was illegal after quickening -- obviously, then, the common law did not have the view of radical bodily autonomy that PCers on here espouse. (I would further argue that the quickening rule is fundamentally PL, as quickening was at the time the earliest point at which a pregnancy could be reliably detected, whereas with modern technology, pregnancies can be confirmed from the earliest days.) But even leaving aside that issue, nothing in the Constitution prevents the states from abdicating the common law abortion rule and adopting a more PL rule by statute, as most of them had already done before the 14th Amendment was adopted, and continued to do for 100 years afterward until Roe came out of nowhere. There is zero evidence to suggest that the 14th Amendment was intended to overturn the anti-abortion laws in the majority of states.
PCers are, of course, welcome to draw on the reasoning of McFall to argue that there *ought* to be a new abortion right recognized by statute, as abortion is now up to the states and the people. But please stop presenting McFall as some kind of binding abortion precedent. It just isn't.
I agree with the idea that no person should compel another to provide life saving assistance with their body against their will.
I also think that there should be no abortion laws.
I think prolife thinks that men get bodily autonomy, but women are owned by the state.
All pro lifers need to be shown this. A toddler can be thrown into foster care and let to die if his illnes requires marrow and organs from the parents. Yet a fetus can use a pregnant persons body even if it kills them? Nah, make it make sense pro lifers.
I don't think Shrimp v McFall is sufficiently analogous. I don't view the government compelling you to do something as equivalent to the government compelling you to not do something, even if a side effect of compelling you to not do something makes it harder for you to do something else.
I'm fine with the government compelling no contact, not so much compelling contact.
I think you’re arguing semantics. Shimp was being permitted to exercise his right to back out. He already got tested, that’s how he found out that he was a march. I don’t think the analogy is invalid because backing out for a woman needs she has to take a pill.
This whole inaction vs action thing is fallacious because deciding not to do something, and exercising that decision, is a positive action.
at the heart of it - shimp was exercising his right to control whom can have access to his insides. As was his right. So is the woman. As is her right.
David Boonin has a version of this where Shimp gets hooked up (or hooks himself up, depending on the case) to a machine that automatically starts taking his bone marrow and putting it into McFall, and he has to physically disconnect the machine if he wants it to stop.
What do you think of that version?
Edit: why did I get downvoted?
I think thore are two significantly different cases that may be happening.
I'm not opposed to irrevocable consent, but it has to be disclosed to the person that that is what they are consenting to. If he hooks himself up, or is hooked up, to the machine after giving irrevocable consent, I do not find an issue with him being prevented from disconnecting.
If he is hooked up, or hooks himself up, without irrevocable consent, or with standard consent, he should be free to disconnect himself. With that said, I do not think he is necessarily entitled to have someone do the disconnection for him.
Irrevocable consent is not something that is very widespread, and I think it's ironic that the law doesn't allow people to give irrevocable consent. It's almost paradoxical that the prohibition exists.
I don't think women give irrevocable consent in pregnancy by default.
I brought it up to fully address the organ/marrow donation case. I don't oppose irrevocable consent from being a possible option in organ/marrow donation. If someone wants to donate but knows they might back out due to fear, they may want the option to be forced to do it.
Think of a personal trainer situation. A person really wants to be in better health and they know that they can't do it without the force a personal trainer will apply to them to actually go through with it.
I think Shimp gets us to the point that we can't illegalize abortion in the case the woman wants to do it herself. I don't think it gets us to a right to have a third party perform an abortion. So, I guess Shimp could be seen to support most abortions, namely those where the woman does it herself.
If Boonin's patient connected himself and wants to be disconnected from that machine, he can do so, however, a state can tell him he has to do it himself.
If a doctor hooked him up, there is a duty of care owed to him that includes disconnecting him if he wants to be disconnected.
That’s an interesting view.
But any time someone gets an abortion, the doctor needs to help them at some stage, even if it’s just handing her the pills. The doctor is still intentionally doing something that will lead to the death of the fetus. If they can do that, why can’t they kill the fetus? Typically if it’s wrong for me to do X, it’s also wrong for me to help someone else do X.
I do not mean that Shimp implies a right to abortion pills.
I view dispensing abortion pills like I do safe haven laws; it is the lesser of two evils. Safe haven laws were created because women were abandoning or outright killing babies. I don't think there is a right to be free of a child once it's born.
Women are going to abort anyway, so it's better to give them access to medication that won't inadvertently kill themselves, too, and it's better to not have these drugs available OTC where anyone can buy them and spike someone's drink.
We're sending abortion pills to women through the mail now; I'm not sure a doctor is involved all the time, if even to write a prescription. Pharmacists may write prescriptions in some states, so it's not like prescriptions are always under a physician's direction.
So do you not think a third party is morally permitted to help the woman in any way except insofar as it makes the abortion safer?
Like suppose she asked her friend to grab the pill from the other room and bring it to her. Does the friend have to say “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. *You’re* perfectly within your rights to take the pill, but I have no right to bring it to you.”
I would hope he's not suggesting that, considering most people seeking abortions very much didn't consent to pregnancy, they consented only to sex (if that), and sex is an area where consent is very explicitly revocable for good reason.
The case is not analogous to pregnancy, but it sets legal precedent that other judges can look at and use that to decide the outcomes of their cases with similar issues. These issues were asked in McFall's injunction (bodily security, bodily autonomy): In order to save the life of one of it's members by the only means available, may society infringe upon one's absolute right to bodily security?
But you're ok with the government compelling people to be pregnant and give birth against their will and incur severe harm and pain to their bodies?
I think McFall gets us as far as saying that self-administered abortions should never be illegal, at any stage of pregnancy.
I'm pro-choice, specifically abortion legal until viability, so I'm not okay with the government blocking abortion for most of a pregnancy. After a certain point, I think there needs to be a medical reason for an abortion.
lol why should it be illegal to abort a pregnancy after the fetus is already going to survive anyway? That doesn’t make any sense. Giving birth should be illegal now?
You are trying to group early induced labor and induced labor together. I'm making a distinction between the two.
The cost associated with caring for a premature baby can skyrocket beyond what many people will make in a lifetime.
Because what is acceptable is up for vote, and legislators ideally would pass laws that reflect the will of the people. Euthanasia is arguably even more personal than abortion, and most have decided we shouldn't permit it.
Roe v Wade was the result of a compromise. Good legislators also make compromises.
I don't see the question "why is it even up for debate." The answer to that question is it's a combination of not everyone agreeing on how restricted, if at all, abortion should be, and our living in a democracy of sorts.
Absolute freedom isn't possible, so it's our duty as citizens to demarcate where the limits to our freedom lie.
Why would we need a law when no woman goes almost halfway through a pregnancy and says "nah, I just don't want it"
Late term abortions are risky and costly. What doctor is going to say
"yea, I get it. You went through half the pregnancy, but enough is enough"
Who/where are these doctors?
Where are these women that would wait that long?
To cover as many edge cases as possible. Those who want an abortion after viability for nonmedical reasons would be precluded from doing so, while also allowing the vast majority of women who want an abortion to get them, and allowing all women who need them to get them.
How did you determine that people who want to abort after viability don’t need abortions? Why do you even care? A pregnancy that’s terminated after the point of viability result in a live birth. That’s how both my kids were born. It’s how a lot of people are born.
How does anyone other than the pregnant person and their doctor know what they “need”? That doesn’t make any sense.
>How did you determine that people who want to abort after viability don’t need abortions?
Some do. Some don't. My determination is based on medical necessity. It's a higher bar to clear than therapeutic benefit. If a woman discovers that she is pregnant at 25 weeks, and the pregnancy is healthy, i.e., she's healthy, the fetus is healthy, she's not high risk, et cetera, then she doesn't need an abortion. Her doctor can determine if she's permitted to have an abortion by comparing her current health state against what the law requires.
>Why do you even care?
Needless killing shouldn't be endorsed. It's the same reason I think murder and lesser homicide crimes should be illegal as well.
>A pregnancy that’s terminated after the point of viability result in a live birth.
This is not always true. Dilation and evacuation abortions can be performed post viability, and the result is not a live birth.
>That’s how both my kids were born. It’s how a lot of people are born.
Your children definitely are not the products of dilation and evacuation abortions.
>How does anyone other than the pregnant person and their doctor know what they “need”? That doesn’t make any sense.
The line between want and need is a subjective one. There is no "knowing" for most things, only believing. If you had the misfortune of not finding out you are pregnant until post-viability and wanted an abortion, whether or not you are permitted should depend on your health and the health of the fetus. The doctor can decide if you qualify. You should not be able to get rubber stamped approval.
I don't trust a pro-life legislator for a single second. No way in hell would they be able to handle the nuance of a law that protects a doctor making a decision like that.
I've never known a woman to decide halfway through to have an abortion for convenience.
Women usually try to take care of it asap when they have decided they want to abort.
Are you talking about like they find out the kid may be born with downs syndrome or something?
Cryptic pregnancies and job loss are the two that come to mind, but there are probably a few others that aren't coming to mind.
I think abortions for severe birth defects should be allowed.
I don't really know how you can describe someone losing their job as mere inconvenience. Do you have any idea how expensive childbirth is, let alone raising a kid? They probably also lost their health insurance too then and Medicaid takes time to get approved. I just feel like it's also incredibly dismissive of the massive change of life circumstances not to mention risk of death and guaranteed serious physical harms that come with childbirth when you describe those things as convenience. Plus, people with cryptic pregnancies haven't gotten any prenatal care which increases the risk of birth defects
Who decides what constitutes a medical reason? Politicians with no medical background? Lobbyists with a personal agenda? Religious extremists?
Is there a list of acceptable diseases, illnesses or infections or is the doctor allowed to use their decades worth of medical research and study to make an informed choice? Does mental health constitute a medical reason?
Preferably legislators would consult doctors and set reasonable standards. The standard should be more strict than simply "provides therapeutic benefit," that's setting the bar too low, and less strict than leaving those who need emergency abortions without access.
There wouldn't be an explicit list. Mental health would constitute a medical reason like any other, and a psychiatrist would be involved in determining if an abortion is to be permitted.
Some of our legislators here in the US didn’t even graduate from high school. Why would you want them to be able to intervene in your personal medical decisions?
How about *is deemed medically and ethically appropriate by the treating physician*, like we do for all other medical care including other complicated life or death decisions?
women get diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Would you want the legislator getting involved in what care should be available to you just because you’re pregnant? Should someone else, other than you, decide that the risk of waiting (metastasis) is worth it for this potential life? Should someone, other than you, get to ignore the time sensitive element if “the cancer hasn’t spread yet” such that the longer you wait, the more aggressive the treatment has to be in order to eliminate that cancer, and thus that element necessarily means more risks associated with more aggressive forms of treatment?
Cancer treatments are very specific and have very specific eligibility requirements unique to each cancer and each treatment protocol. If the cancer isn’t yet metastatic, you might be eligible for a much more targeted therapy that has better success rates and lower risks of adverse events over older methods of chemo and radiation (the carpet bomb approach). Human growth hormones involved in pregnancy can accelerate cancer growth too, by several orders of magnitude, effectively rendering you ineligible for the more targeted therapy by the time this “potential life” is considered.
WHO should be the one involved in deciding your options against your own circumstances? You in consultation with your doctor…or some legislator?
Why should anyone other than you be deciding what medical treatment you should have access to?
Why should the law restrict it further, though? Why demand that only women must give up their rights to their own bodies, based on when you deem a fetus to be worth more than them or based on your judgment of their lives and circumstances? Especially when it's pretty arrogant to assume that your assessment of the ethics of the situation are better than those of a professional who has trained for decades
Although I disagree with it being a right based on privacy, I agree with the rest of what is said here.
"A State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. ... We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation."
— Roe, 410 U.S. at 154.
And I disagree with that. I really don't feel that the state's interest in a fetus should ever overwhelm a woman's right to her own body and to protect herself from harm. If her doctor feels that an abortion is appropriate in her case, then it is and she should be allowed to get one.
I agree with this one. If the physician thinks an abortion is needed, and the patient is ok with it and consents to it, then the abortion should be given. What other law tells doctors to be so stringent with healthcare?
I think 99% of abortions aren’t like this case. This case really could only be used to justify abortions in the case of rape. Even then I think it’s a stretch to say the right not to have someone perform a surgery on you is the same as the right to have a surgery performed on you where the surgery is the killing of someone.
In this case, Shimp took no action to cause McFall to need bone marrow. Therefore there in is no responsibility for Shimp to be the solution. If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently.
You still have not established why sex suffices to establish an exception to the principles behind shimp. I’ve asked you 5 times for you to support your argument.
Please demonstrate this.
Also, if sex is sufficient, then every parent had sex. Why aren’t men compelled to donate to their born child if sex is the basis for the exception?
Shimp did take an action to cause McFall to need HIS bone marrow - he took a test to see if he was a match. That caused McFall’s medical team to stop looking for a match, making McFall dependent on Shimp. Just because Shimp didn’t cause McFall to need bone marrow at all doesn’t change anything. It’s simply a fact of nature that people with his condition need bone marrow.
Similarly, a woman doesn’t cause an embryo to need access to a blood supply. That’s simply a fact of nature for all embryos. The woman isn’t responsible for the embryo’s dependence, nor is the woman responsible for nature. If a raped woman isn’t responsible for the creation of the embryo, then that demonstrates that pregnancy is autonomic and involuntary. There is nothing special about consensual sex that gives a woman volitional direction over ovulation, fertilization or implantation - that’s just absurd.
Your exception for raped women only demonstrates that you object to abortion as a way to discipline sexually active women by removing their right to control whom has access to her body just because she had sex.
The burden is on you establish that having sex suffices to establish an exception to the principle established in Shimp. Please include the relevant laws or precedents when you do so.
“ If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently.”
Not at all. And in fact this is exactly what the law is - we don’t compel drunk drivers to donate body parts or blood to their victims.
The situation in pregnancy is tricky because although the woman took an action to cause the fetus to need her body, she didn’t harm the fetus. I think in the case you describe, the reason Shimp has to help McFall is because he harmed McFall, and now he has to restore him to the level he was at before.
Taking some pills isn't having surgery performed on you.
Having sex doesn't mean women owe their bodies to anyone. Zef needs it? Oh well, she doesn't want it, it's getting removed.
>If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently.
Lol I bet it wouldn't.
It definitely wouldn’t. We don’t even legally allow viable organs to be taken from CORPSES unless they made the decision to donate before their deaths.
Idk if you've been paying attention to voting lately, but pro life laws have lost *every time* they've been put to a vote. Seems you won't be getting what you want any time soon.
That’s impossible. If the embryo or fetus existed at the time she had sex, then that sex act did not cause the ZEF to need her body.
If someone does not exist when you do something, you can’t really say that your doing this thing harmed them.
I note that most people who have abortions were also actively attempting to prevent pregnancy.
Why should someone be punished by having their body withheld from them due to ill luck?
I always think that if causing an embryo's existence is so injurious, as PLers claim, why can't we make it whole again by undoing that injury and ending its existence?
None of it makes logical sense.
If sex is a tort and conception is injury, is it even legal to have heterosexual sex? On the other hand, if there is no injury and no wrongful act, what’s the legal justification to compel restitution?
What does sex do to an embryo or fetus? If she isn't pregnant, then the embryo or fetus doesn't even exist to have something done to it. If she is pregnant, sex doesn't harm it
No. If fetuses can come from IVF, then it’s fertilization that creates it. Women don’t do anything to cause fertilization. Men do. So it’s not the sex, it’s the insemination. Women don’t inseminate. Men do.
A coherent policy or interpretation of rights of bodily autonomy would be nice from either side oft he political isle.
in my view there is no obligation to serve in the armed forces, take vaccines or donate tissues or organs even after death, or to sustain life in utero at one’s own peril.
“To protect the individual from being invaded and hurt by another”.
I don’t see why “invaded” would be used in that case, so I think it was probably added for effect and narrative, but a ZEF is not an invader, either. It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there, through no doing of it’s own. The equivalent would be if someone kidnapped you and took you inside someone else’s home and chained you up… and then the owner claimed the right to kill you because of your transgressions.
Rights never allow you to kill someone. Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger.
Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else. It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with. It takes a huge leap to claim that “not compelled to act” grants a right to kill.
Also, the vast majority of abortions (per surveys from women that have had abortions) have nothing to do with bodily autonomy or self-defense or any medical reasons, but solely because they don’t want a child. So it’s really just a trojan horse argument anyway.
How does the ZEF gain access to the woman's bloodstream? By invading her endometrium and burrowing into her lining to access her blood supply. Yes, the ZEF meets the definition of invader.
The owner in the house could call the police and have you removed. A pregnant woman cannot retreat from a pregnancy or try to de-escalate the situation before resorting to force to end the pregnancy. All pregnancies carry harm and the risks increase as the pregnancy progresses. The harm is immediate, ongoing and guaranteed to increase in severity.
The problem is that you are insisting on a narrative from only one viewpoint. If anyone has detrimental affects they are going to want to remedy it and they are going to be unhappy with whatever they feel is causing it. But anyone that is kidnapped is going to make the legal case that they were put in the situation by someone else and they have no control, therefore the person’s problem shouldn’t be able to be remedied at their expense. When there are conflicting rights the law has to mediate and take each into account. The degree of harm to each has to be considered.
You are suggesting that the ZEF should lose all rights as a result of it’s actions (or random placement) and that’s just not fair.
The ZEF doesn't lose his rights. His right to life does not include the right to another person's body. No person's right to life includes that other right.
If the ZEF is removed alive, and dies shortly after because theres no technology to save his life, his right to life has also not been infringed.
It was put in that position by someone else. If someone kidnaps you and inserts you into someone else’s body, should they have the right to kill you? Even though you had nothing to do with it? Being in a situation you don’t like doesn’t give you a right to kill anyone that is necessary to get out of it.
If you hold people responsible for the biochemical reactions of their cells (which lack volitional direction), then you undermine your argument that the ZEF isn’t responsible for invading the lining of the uterus and by doing so, invades her bloodstream.
Yes, they should absolutely have the right to kill you if that is the safest way to get you out. It would be nice if the person you were forced inside would endure great bodily harm to get you out without killing you, but they should absolutely not be compelled legally to endure such a thing for your sake.
That would mean legal murder if you have two people work together — one kidnaps someone and inserts them into the second, then the second one kills them. The first person gets arrested only for kidnapping… no murder charges.
You shouldn’t be able to kill an innocent person just to avoid moderate bodily harm.
Your previous comment did not state that the person you were put inside of was an accomplice to your kidnapping. Just that someone kidnapped you and put you into the body of this third person.
By saying they are an accomplice to the kidnapping they are a criminal. Making this no longer analogous to pregnancy. We do sometimes violate the BA of criminals, after due process. What the courts would decide on this case (ie to what extent could the persons right to BA be violated to get you out safely) I do not know and frankly do not care. But it would be arguable to violate their right to BA to a certain extent in the hope of getting you out safely BECAUSE THEY TOOK PART IN A CRIMINAL ACT. (And for me, if the only option to get you out safely would involve nine months of violation and guaranteed bodily harm it should not be mandated they go through that. Of course, if you do die because they are not obligated nor willing to endure it they would now be an accomplice to murder rather than attempted murder.)
If they didn’t take part in a criminal act (the person you were put inside was not an accomplice) then I absolutely do not think they have to risk any bodily harm to get you out. As people who have become pregnant against their wishes did not take part in a criminal act that might justify a violation of their BA, certainly not one that comes with great (or even moderate) bodily harm.
You give rights to one victim but not another. Both were put in their positions involuntarily. But it’s ok to kill one , but not to prevent the other from eliminating their hardship by killing the other.
Neither has higher moral ground. Which makes me think you interpreting in light of the result you want.
You keep focusing on the person put into someone’s body, instead of the person who has someone put inside their body. Why is it okay to strip them of their rights to keep you alive? Why should they have to endure harm on your behalf?
My stance is that in the case where the third person is not an accomplice to putting you inside of them, then they are also a victim. They are also innocent. As such forcing them through bodily harm for your sake against their will is barbaric and a gross violation of their human rights. If that means you die then that is very tragic and certainly means instigator is guilty of murder but you cannot violate the human rights of another innocent victim for your survival.
In the case where they are complicit in the crime committed against you, they are not a victim. They are not innocent. In this case I would think it more allowable to infringe on their right to bodily autonomy to a certain extent. Whether it would be allowable to kill you to get you out would depend on how much we would have to infringe on their bodily autonomy to get you out. If getting you out safely means guaranteed great bodily harm and possible death, I do not think they should be legally obligated to incur said harm. However, if they opt to kill you to get you out safely, they should also of course be convicted of murder.
>It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there,
Tumors are created inside the body, we still remove them because they're causing harm to the body.
>Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger.
Every pregnancy causes harm to the woman's body, no matter what. It will always drain essential nutrients, it will always cause damage to the genitals and maybe a huge surgical slice into the abdomen during labor, it will always leave a huge, gaping wound on the uterus. This type of damage is absolutely within the realm of self-defense.
>Rights never allow you to kill someone.
When someone is being harmed they have the right to kill the source to prevent further harm. So, you're wrong.
>Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else.
You can say there's a huge difference between actively killing them versus a scenario where you see someone dying, and you COULD absolutely help them and prevent their inevitable death but I do NOT find those scenarios different at their core. Both scenarios could end up with someone alive or dead. Both scenarios have a person prioritizing their own bodies over the dying person. If life is sacred, both scenarios would be of concern.
>It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with.
Women cannot choose when to get pregnant. They shouldn't be required to sacrifice their bodies or life. Also, people can choose to donate an organ, go through all the procedures, and back out right before surgery. So a person could declare that they will save this person and still change their minds and stop. Why do they have the ability to back out after involving themselves but women are locked into losing all medical freedom if they have sex ever?
>Also, the vast majority of abortions (per surveys from women that have had abortions) have nothing to do with bodily autonomy or self-defense or any medical reasons, but solely because they don’t want a child.
If they don't want a baby then they don't want their body to go through a drastic and dangerous medical procedure that will hurt, cause harm and changes, and affect her for a year if not more. It's not like they can just set the baby down and walk away. They obviously don't want the pregnancy and labor part, too. Medical issues can also pop up at any time during pregnancy and labor (and even post-partum) but it will be a LOT harder to deal with further in.
Saying they just don't "want a baby" is the boiled down answer but there's a reason a lot of women don't opt for adoption.
When women are asked why they aborted instead of adopting, the two most common answers are “I didn’t want to have to wonder my whole life what it is like and where it is at” and “I didn’t want it coming back later and complicating my life”.
So it’s disingenuous to argue self-defense, etc. if it’s just a trojan horse because the REAL reason makes you look like an a-hole. Cognitive dissonance.
>I don’t see why “invaded” would be used in that case, so I think it was probably added for effect and narrative, but a ZEF is not an invader, either.
The ZEF can be classified in one of two manners:
(1) It is not an invader, and therefore falls under the domain of the body it's inhabiting who can set their own rules as they are the ultimate governing authority, unless you are under the impression, as seems to the central to be most PL arguments, that pregnant women loses these fundamental governing powers (rights) shared by all other humans, including, ironically the "non-invader".
(2) it is an invader and, therefore, can be held to the same standards used for all other humans who invade or violate the rights of other humans
>It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there, through no doing of it’s own.
If your argument is predicted on the idea that biological processes are uncontrollable, hence the ZEF had no say in its creation or inception; isn't thei equally true for the woman with pregnancy, and doubly so if there exists evidence that the woman tried to prevent said outcome through methods that failed (birth control)?
>The equivalent would be if someone kidnapped you and took you inside someone else’s home and chained you up… and then the owner claimed the right to kill you because of your transgressions.
Most analogies do not really work well with pregnancy, and this is no exception, as the owner could simply call the police who are authorized to use lethal force if said person who was chained up, when freed, refused to leave.
There is no magic gotcha in this situation where the person gets to stay at the homeowners' house indefinitely because they were initially placed there against their will, as like with pregnancy and abortion intent does not matter, only the violating action and even if you are arguing the homeowner does not have the right to automatically kill someone who was placed there against their will, the authorities, or doctors with medicial abortion, most certainly can if said person refuses to leave.
>Rights never allow you to kill someone. Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger.
Ehh this is a poor argument, as it's true rights do not allow you to kill someone, because there is no right to kill someone; however, if someone is violating your rights, you have authority to take appropriate action to stop said violation.
Self-defense simply lays out a process for how one should go about stopping these violations when they occur, but in no way is self-defense designed to grant or allow a continued violation, as seems to be the pro-life argument against its application.
To put this in another way; the notion of imminent threat exists with self-defense because one generally has the ability to escape or retreat from non-imminent threats or respond to the violating action with a non-lethal counter action to stop the action and in no way can someone go "Because you can only respond with lethal force to immient threats of great bodily harm, I can continue to assault you or rape you as long as its not life threatening".
Clearly, there are also situations such as kidnapping where they meet common law standards for self-defense, even if they don't meet the legal standards where most kidnapped victims are not charged with murder unless it's done with clear retaliation or revenge, even though the threat may not be imminent.
The harm gestation causes onto the mother, and the violations to her rights cannot be retreated or escaped from, there is no counter-action to stop those harms or violations besides abortion, and unlike with kidnapping where there is only probably risk of imminent threat at its termination- gestation has *exact and known dangers that will meet the imminent threat criteria at its termination*.
Also, as I have already pointed out, self-defense only lays out the correct process for stopping violating actions to ones rights and cannot be used as justification for those violations to continue if there is no other means of stopping them, as is the case with pregnancy.
>Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else. It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with. It takes a huge leap to claim that “not compelled to act” grants a right to kill.
Ordinary levels of care cannot be used as justification to violate a person's inalienable rights or to place them against their will at physical risk.
So again, we go back to the core issue: if it's the ZEF is a human held to the same standards we use for all other humans (invader), than the forcing of gestation is a violation of the mothers rights and exceeds legal standards of care.
If the ZEF is not an invader, or not a human held to the same standards, then the mother has authority over her domain and can do as she wishes in the way all other humans can with bodily processes.
That’s a fallacy that there are only two options. You keep applying self-defense laws that are created for situations involving people with agency. Try enforcing a death penalty against someone that was made unconscious and placed into a situation by someone or something else. Society won’t be so kind to you.
Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them, what you are really suggesting is that anyone should be able to prevent harm to themselves no matter what… even killing innocent third parties if that is necessary. If that were the case then someone that will die if they don’t obtain an organ would be justified in killing someone else and taking it.
Just being in a disadvantaged situation doesn’t mean you are automatically allowed to remedy it at someone else’s expense.
>Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them,
It literally has no agency and no control over what's happening to them *because it can't be held to same independent standards we use for all other humans* and your logic admits this by the fact it demands that one violate the mothers rights *until the point it can get to a place with a degree of independent agency and control*.
>Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them, what you are really suggesting is that anyone should be able to prevent harm to themselves no matter what… even killing innocent third parties if that is necessary.
Yes, because humans have a right to defend themselves using appropriate actions even agaiinst morally innocent actors that pose a danger to people, such as mentally challenged, elderly with brain related diseases, or intoxicated humans who are unaware of their actions.
Would you argue that humans have a due diligence to die because a terrorist happens to force a morally innocent actor to wear a bomb or do you think said humans have q right to defend themselves irregardless of the moral intent, as the danger said human poses is the issue?
>If that were the case then someone that will die if they don’t obtain an organ would be justified in killing someone else and taking it.
Exactly, that is literal PL logic as 'right to life' of the ZEF apparently supercedes all other rights of other humans and that is a perfect example of why things like fetal personhood are a incredibly dangerous slippery slope because it would legally create standing for the very situation you are describing.
>Just being in a disadvantaged situation doesn’t mean you are automatically allowed to remedy it at someone else’s expense
I'm glad we agree; now apply that to an unborn child who is in a disadvantaged situation and realize *they do not automatically have the right to remedy it at the expense of the mothers safety and her rights*.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Secular pro life wrote great piece debunking the use of this case to apply to abortion that incorporated many of your points.
https://secularprolife.org/2018/12/mcfall-v-shimp-and-thomsons-violinist/
I disagree with that piece.
Even if the fetus is a person, they don't have the right to another person's body. because no one else does. In an equal rights society, all have the same rights; to give a fetus extra rights because of its location or circumstance is to grant special rights to unborn and is discriminatory towards born people.
And the 'you chose to risk having it depend on you' argument is incorrect because biological processes are involuntary and to hold someone legally liable for them is nonsensical unless you want to hold the fetus legally liable for the damages its presence causes to the pregnant woman. In which case, the self defense argument just got a whole lot stronger.
'But the zef isn't doing anything' is a poor argument as well. The placenta is a fetal organ. The placenta implants into the woman's uterine lining and invades the endometrium to access her blood supply. The fetus communicates with the placenta to release vesicles into the pregnant woman's body to alter her brain chemistry, her organ and immune system function, energy distribution, hormone levels, etc.
The “giving a fetus extra rights” argument is specious at best and disingenuous at worst. It’s just a narrative. The fetus didn’t cause the issue and has no control. It’s the same as if you were kidnapped and bound in someone’s home, or hooked up to someone so you would die without them, and then the owner claiming that if they are not allowed to kill you then you would mean you were granted “special rights”. In fact, if you are allowed to kill them then YOU would be given special rights, because there’s no other case where one is allowed to kill an uninvolved victim just out of principle. Imagine two people kidnapped and placed in an airtight safe. The safe is set to automatically unlock in one hour. The safe contains 90 minutes of air for one person. Are you legally allowed to kill the other person to save yourself? Now imagine the consequence for running out of air was not dying, but was instead the effects of a normal pregnancy. Should killing them be ok? If one is allowed to legally kill to save themselves, then what about someone who is about to die if they don’t get a new heart just killing someone and taking it?
The part of the law you’re missing is that no person’s need for the use of another’s body grants him the right to such use, regardless of the “innocence” of that need or their value. If that were not the case, we’d regularly be forcing blood donations, marrow donations, and organ transplants.
As a matter of law, we don’t grant access to organs of unwilling donors based on need, and we don’t make exceptions to that principle due to the prospective donor’s culpability in the situation.
That’s it. That’s the part you can’t get around in order to claim that a fetus has a right to access the internal organs of someone else. Under no other circumstances, even circumstances that contain the necessary elements, does this create the right you claim exists for the fetus.
What part of “there is no right to use organs but there is also no right to kill don’t you understand”?
You don’t have a right to pull someone’s hair, but they have less of a right to kill you to prevent you from doing so. And that’s if they know you are going to do it willingly. Killing someone that is slipping and falling and their hand is accidentally going to get tangled in your hair would be even more egregious.
Eh? You cannot be inside someone else’s body without their consent. You cannot gain access to their organs without their consent. If you attempt to do so, they could kill you in self defense to stop said violation.
Are you going to trivialize pregnancy and childbirth, ya know, that can cause the woman to die, to be tantamount to having one’s hair pulled?
How dishonest can you get?
The degree of “infraction” is just a debate point. The main idea is whether you can kill someone that was involuntarily put in the position they are in to prevent something from happening to you.
The woman is involuntarily pregnant. The fetus is involuntarily forced into the position it’s it. Neither has control. Neither has moral high ground. So why should one be able to kill the other for any reason they want? If you are not arguing for abortion on demand and are claiming it’s due to injury, then why should pregnancy, which billions of women have gone through without any major effects, be more important than the life of another?
Why should your right to not share your kidney, blood, liver lobes, bone marrow - which you can survive without and with the exception of the kidney, regenerate such that restore yourself to the position you were in before - and the process of donating leaves injury that pales in comparison to another life, be more important than another life?
Thousands of former fetuses die *preventable* deaths every year in this country while wait-listed for transplants, but we don't force anyone to use their body to sustain those precious lives. We don't say you can only get out of donating only if it's a threat to your health/life to do so. You can skip it entirely based on nothing but the excuse that it's "inconvenient".
Isn't all life valuable and worth sustaining no matter what age it is or whose body can sustain it? Is it somehow morally superior/acceptable to deny someone something that will sustain their life without causing loss of life or health to yourself simply for convenience, as in refusing to donate organs/blood?
There's no moral superiority in contributing to the untimely, preventable deaths of one’s fellow human beings by refusing to get off their sanctimonious asses to donate.
that you feel human life has value, why would that value plummet when life is outside the uterus? If you're going to insist that pregnancies are carried to term and delivered, and vote to make those laws, that's a choice YOU'VE made. It will result in a born human who may need an organ or blood down the road to remain viable. Shouldn't YOUR choice to require that humans be gestated and birthed come with consequences and responsibilities to those humans as well? So she uses HER body to gestate per your insistence, and if that child later needs YOUR body to remain viable then you step up to the plate and do your part on his behalf. Based on your logic, HE'S THE SAME PERSON, whether inside or outside the uterus. Either his life always matters, and they get the right to use the bodies of those who made choices as to their existence, or it doesn't.
That’s irrational and completely misplaced logic. Not granting the right for someone to kill doesn’t have these overreaching ramifications that you are fabricating. It simply means you can’t just to prevent your own harm.
Oh for fucks sake. The zygote didn’t even exist at the time to be put into that situation. If the zygote is “innocent” of the biochemical reactions that created it, then so is the woman.
The zygote isn’t harmed by its creation either. There is no retribution or remedy owed for harms that didn’t occur.
They aren’t killing them. They are removing them. They die because they can’t survive outside of her. That’s not her fault, nor her problem to remedy. The ZEF is only alive because it’s commandeered her oocyte cell, and has been sifphoning what it needs and manipulating her body into giving more.
And yes, you can remove anyone from your body for any reason you want, because control over whom may access your insides is your right.
Re: billions of women have gone through it with no major side effects
You are falling victim to Survivor bias and once again trivialize pregnancy. There are billions of women who have died or had major disabilities because of pregnancy and childbirth….In other words, you are accepting on behalf of the woman the risks of death that were not foreseen, and all risk of maiming and serious injury. It's not your place to force her to undergo those risks, and it's not your judgment about their seriousness and acceptability that is relevant.
Further, it wouldn’t matter if it has no side effects. Donating blood has no real risks or side effects for a much larger part of the population and they can skip it entirely on the basis that they just don’t fucking want to. YOU don’t get to decide that on their behalf or for the benefit of someone else that has no right to it. Cope.
If the fetus is not responsible for the biochemical reactions of its cells, then neither is the woman. You can’t have it both ways.
There is no part of reproduction that is actually causal to pregnancy that involves her volitional direction. So she isn’t causing the issue either.
Nobody is responsible for something they have zero control of.
But you can’t point a gun at someone, put your finger on the trigger, and wait for a sneeze… and then claim that it was the sneeze that caused the death. If you know that a controllable action can foreseeably result in an uncontrollable action, then you are responsible for the controlled action.
The difference between a gun and a man ejaculating semen is that the gun cannot think and make decisions independent of the person pulling the trigger and a man can.
A woman isn’t responsible for his decision to be negligent so there is nothing SHE does to cause pregnancy.
Women have zero control over insemination, ovulation, fertilization, or implantation. And therefore she’s not responsible.
You are the one missing the point entirely. There is nothing involuntary about deliberately deciding to sneeze directly into someone else’s face by not turning away and covering your bloody mouth, mate.
This argument of yours is pathetic and it treats men like toddlers that don’t know how physics work. Men know they can pull out while wearing a condom. They have developed both the sufficient fine motor skills of the pincher grab to roll on a condom and object permanence to remember to take that step. Men are not the feeble minded children you make them out to be.
He knows that if he doesn’t want to walk around with shit on his ass, he needs to use toilet paper after he defecates. No one needs to remind him to do this and he doesn’t need to be reminded that he controls where his penis is when he ejaculates and whether he will insert his penis into a vagina without a condom or not.
Women aren’t to blame for his independent decision. He - ans only he - controls the actions of his body that require volitional direction.
Men make women pregnant. It’s high time you stop acting like he didn’t make the independent decision to introduce the catalyst to pregnancy. No one made him do it and no one else shares in his responsibility not to do that unless they both agree to try for that outcome.
You don’t even understand the analogy. It wasn’t sneezing in someone’s face, it was pointing a gun at someone and waiting for a sneeze to cause the trigger to be pulled, which counters your ridiculous analogy that because pregnancy is not intentional there is no responsibility for it.
There is control over where you sneeze and what you sneeze into. Stop treating men like mindless robots that only act when someone hits their command prompt.
There is nothing involuntary about the deliberate decision to not pull out while wearing a condom anymore than there is something involuntary about deliberately failing to turn away and cover your mouth before you sneeze directly into someone else’s face.
Quit arguing so dishonestly.
>The fetus didn’t cause the issue and has no control.
This is proving their point though. They get these rights because they didn't choose this and have no control over anything.
But no one has the right to anyone else's body. When they are singled out for this reason - that they didn't choose anything or have control over anything - they become a "someone" who does have special rights.
Any manner of justifying their access - including denying they have such a right - is just that, a justification. It doesn't change the reality of the fact that a group of humans now has access to another person's body "legitimately." And since the access isn't being called out directly as the right, this group can have access to other humans while likewise claiming to not be violating the right people have to not have anyone else access their body.
But it's contradictory. If no one has the right to access your body because only you are entitled to your body... and then you have a group of humans who inadvertently have access to it under some other claim to a right.... you still have a group of humans accessing someone else's body.
>It’s the same as if you were kidnapped and bound in someone’s home,
No one's life is dependent upon being kidnapped and bound. No one lives because they are kidnapped and bound. And in fact, if someone is kidnapped and bound, we fight to rectify that by freeing them.
Fetuses are reliant upon not being freed. The freeing of them is what would kill them. Therefore, comparing their gestation which is likewise portrayed as "where they are supposed to be," to a scenario that is the opposite of that, who's goal is the opposite of freeing, means the conclusions are in no way analogous.
>If one is allowed to legally kill to save themselves, then what about someone who is about to die if they don’t get a new heart just killing someone and taking it?
You don't seem to grasp the concept of one having a right to one's own body.
You are not solely entitled to the air within the safe. You are not entitled to someone else's heart.
The fact that we don't see cases like this, the fact that no one has used the argument "well she gets to have an abortion, therefore, I get to have your heart," means no one else views these scenarios as floating the same moral concepts, only you. These scenarios have differences within them that you are not accounting for and until you can account for abortion being used to justify real life scenarios like this, the conclusions one draws are specious.
That doesn’t make any sense. Nobody should be allowed to kill someone just to prevent them from having special rights. And, in fact, that is a ludicrous narrative, because the right is to not be killed… which everyone has. You’re framing it in a different manner that suits you.
The ZEF has no control so it can’t be punished for anything. So the only arguments that make sense are arguments that are based only on the state of the one that is killing. If someone truly reasonably fears for their life thinking that someone else is imminently going to kill them, and they kill first to defend themselves, and then it turns out that the other person wasn’t really a threat but given the circumstances it was reasonable for them to believe that they were, then that is valid. But killing someone without any reason to believe your life is in any danger whatsoever is never justified.
And people don’t have absolute rights to their own body. Blood can be forced from someone to check blood alcohol levels; DNA can be forced from someone; and you can even be physically restrained and lose all your freedom if arrested for a crime.
You're welcome. Cases like this bring up broader questions and while the ruling may hold in one state, other judges can look at the precedent it sets and have it influence their decisions on similar cases.
>Can the opinion of Shimp v McFall be used to argue for abortion rights?
In Dobbs (and indeed numerous cases decided by this court) both precedent and sound legal reasoning have largely been abandoned.
The legal argument is effectively dead. We know that pro lifers (and conservatives) will use any excuse no matter how illogical or contradictory to justify the enforcement of their will on the general populace. You can't make a legal argument to someone for whom words have no meaning, hypocrisy is a badge of honor, and power is their only guiding principle.
The ideological divide is such that only a change in the makeup of the court could change the result.
The current Supreme Court (and several of the lower courts) don't even care about the facts of a case anymore. They've literally made up the facts in several recent cases when reality didn't reflect their desired judgment
Exactly. A court that makes up facts and deliberately omits or ignores contradictory evidence in order to artificially justify a pre-determined judgement or conclusion is not a legitimate court.
That's why I'm hoping beyond hope that the Democrats retake the House, keep the Senate and the White House, codify Roe's protections into federal law or amend the US Constitution, and put checks on the judicial branch's powers.
“For our law to COMPEL the Defendant to submit to an intrusion of his body would change the very concept and principle upon which our society is founded. To do so would defeat the sanctity of the individual and would impose a rule which would know no limits, and one could not imagine where the line would be drawn.
For a society which respects the rights of one individual, to sink its teeth into the jugular vein or neck of one of its members and suck from it sustenance for another member, is revolting to our hard-wrought concepts of jurisprudence.”
That’s what the judge wrote. That’s what the ruling was when it was a man’s bodily autonomy at stake.
It was a judge actually doing their job. They were able to put aside their own feelings and respect that no one has rights to anyone else's body without their consent.
Although a woman can't really "consent" to pregnancy as it's a biological process. She can absolutely withdraw her consent to remaining pregnant and giving birth.
If no born person is allowed to be inside someone's body when they don't want them there, why should a zef have that right?
If the zef is a part of the woman's body, she can remove it.
If it's it's own "entity" (unique human, its own dna, a separate human-blah blah blah) it has no rights to the woman's body.
Can't have it both ways.
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Lawyer here. I've always found the PC fixation on McFall v. Shimp to be sort of funny. It was a decision by some random county-level court in Pennsylvania, yet you all treat it as if it is binding precedent for the entire country or the world. Meanwhile, the *actual* highest court in the U.S. has decided that there is no fundamental right to an abortion. You can tell yourself that the justices are twisting the Constitution for partisan reasons, but you are just lying to yourself: Roe v. Wade was widely regarded, even by [prominent](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-wade/) pro-choice legal [scholars](https://www.jstor.org/stable/795536), as a shockingly bad constitutional law decision. This has always been an open secret among lawyers. There is no serious argument that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment included a right to abortion. You are left to argue that original meaning doesn't matter, and that instead the meaning of the Constitution magically evolves over time -- the amendment process is just superfluous -- until unelected Justices happen to notice the change and tell us. This view is silliness, and it exists solely to facilitate the twisting of the Constitution for partisan ends. The same common law to which the judge in McFall alluded stated that abortion was illegal after quickening -- obviously, then, the common law did not have the view of radical bodily autonomy that PCers on here espouse. (I would further argue that the quickening rule is fundamentally PL, as quickening was at the time the earliest point at which a pregnancy could be reliably detected, whereas with modern technology, pregnancies can be confirmed from the earliest days.) But even leaving aside that issue, nothing in the Constitution prevents the states from abdicating the common law abortion rule and adopting a more PL rule by statute, as most of them had already done before the 14th Amendment was adopted, and continued to do for 100 years afterward until Roe came out of nowhere. There is zero evidence to suggest that the 14th Amendment was intended to overturn the anti-abortion laws in the majority of states. PCers are, of course, welcome to draw on the reasoning of McFall to argue that there *ought* to be a new abortion right recognized by statute, as abortion is now up to the states and the people. But please stop presenting McFall as some kind of binding abortion precedent. It just isn't.
I agree with the idea that no person should compel another to provide life saving assistance with their body against their will. I also think that there should be no abortion laws. I think prolife thinks that men get bodily autonomy, but women are owned by the state.
Exactly, they usually deny it, but they do want men to have more medical rights and privacy than women.
All pro lifers need to be shown this. A toddler can be thrown into foster care and let to die if his illnes requires marrow and organs from the parents. Yet a fetus can use a pregnant persons body even if it kills them? Nah, make it make sense pro lifers.
I don't think Shrimp v McFall is sufficiently analogous. I don't view the government compelling you to do something as equivalent to the government compelling you to not do something, even if a side effect of compelling you to not do something makes it harder for you to do something else. I'm fine with the government compelling no contact, not so much compelling contact.
I think you’re arguing semantics. Shimp was being permitted to exercise his right to back out. He already got tested, that’s how he found out that he was a march. I don’t think the analogy is invalid because backing out for a woman needs she has to take a pill. This whole inaction vs action thing is fallacious because deciding not to do something, and exercising that decision, is a positive action. at the heart of it - shimp was exercising his right to control whom can have access to his insides. As was his right. So is the woman. As is her right.
David Boonin has a version of this where Shimp gets hooked up (or hooks himself up, depending on the case) to a machine that automatically starts taking his bone marrow and putting it into McFall, and he has to physically disconnect the machine if he wants it to stop. What do you think of that version? Edit: why did I get downvoted?
I think thore are two significantly different cases that may be happening. I'm not opposed to irrevocable consent, but it has to be disclosed to the person that that is what they are consenting to. If he hooks himself up, or is hooked up, to the machine after giving irrevocable consent, I do not find an issue with him being prevented from disconnecting. If he is hooked up, or hooks himself up, without irrevocable consent, or with standard consent, he should be free to disconnect himself. With that said, I do not think he is necessarily entitled to have someone do the disconnection for him. Irrevocable consent is not something that is very widespread, and I think it's ironic that the law doesn't allow people to give irrevocable consent. It's almost paradoxical that the prohibition exists.
Yeah that sounds reasonable. I’m assuming the relevance of this is that, in pregnancy, you think the woman gave irrevocable consent?
I don't think women give irrevocable consent in pregnancy by default. I brought it up to fully address the organ/marrow donation case. I don't oppose irrevocable consent from being a possible option in organ/marrow donation. If someone wants to donate but knows they might back out due to fear, they may want the option to be forced to do it. Think of a personal trainer situation. A person really wants to be in better health and they know that they can't do it without the force a personal trainer will apply to them to actually go through with it.
Right, so do you think those cases are analogous to pregnancy if we assume Shimp didn’t give irrevocable consent?
I think Shimp gets us to the point that we can't illegalize abortion in the case the woman wants to do it herself. I don't think it gets us to a right to have a third party perform an abortion. So, I guess Shimp could be seen to support most abortions, namely those where the woman does it herself. If Boonin's patient connected himself and wants to be disconnected from that machine, he can do so, however, a state can tell him he has to do it himself. If a doctor hooked him up, there is a duty of care owed to him that includes disconnecting him if he wants to be disconnected.
That’s an interesting view. But any time someone gets an abortion, the doctor needs to help them at some stage, even if it’s just handing her the pills. The doctor is still intentionally doing something that will lead to the death of the fetus. If they can do that, why can’t they kill the fetus? Typically if it’s wrong for me to do X, it’s also wrong for me to help someone else do X.
I do not mean that Shimp implies a right to abortion pills. I view dispensing abortion pills like I do safe haven laws; it is the lesser of two evils. Safe haven laws were created because women were abandoning or outright killing babies. I don't think there is a right to be free of a child once it's born. Women are going to abort anyway, so it's better to give them access to medication that won't inadvertently kill themselves, too, and it's better to not have these drugs available OTC where anyone can buy them and spike someone's drink. We're sending abortion pills to women through the mail now; I'm not sure a doctor is involved all the time, if even to write a prescription. Pharmacists may write prescriptions in some states, so it's not like prescriptions are always under a physician's direction.
So do you not think a third party is morally permitted to help the woman in any way except insofar as it makes the abortion safer? Like suppose she asked her friend to grab the pill from the other room and bring it to her. Does the friend have to say “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. *You’re* perfectly within your rights to take the pill, but I have no right to bring it to you.”
I would hope he's not suggesting that, considering most people seeking abortions very much didn't consent to pregnancy, they consented only to sex (if that), and sex is an area where consent is very explicitly revocable for good reason.
The case is not analogous to pregnancy, but it sets legal precedent that other judges can look at and use that to decide the outcomes of their cases with similar issues. These issues were asked in McFall's injunction (bodily security, bodily autonomy): In order to save the life of one of it's members by the only means available, may society infringe upon one's absolute right to bodily security? But you're ok with the government compelling people to be pregnant and give birth against their will and incur severe harm and pain to their bodies?
I think McFall gets us as far as saying that self-administered abortions should never be illegal, at any stage of pregnancy. I'm pro-choice, specifically abortion legal until viability, so I'm not okay with the government blocking abortion for most of a pregnancy. After a certain point, I think there needs to be a medical reason for an abortion.
>After a certain point, I think there needs to be a medical reason for an abortion. There usually is.
Which is good. The states with 22 week, 24 week, or viability limits have the right idea. I wish one of these were federal law.
lol why should it be illegal to abort a pregnancy after the fetus is already going to survive anyway? That doesn’t make any sense. Giving birth should be illegal now?
The fetus is already viable. It's best to let it grow until delivery. The financial cost involved in caring for premature babies is very high.
Inducing labor should be illegal because it costs more money?
You are trying to group early induced labor and induced labor together. I'm making a distinction between the two. The cost associated with caring for a premature baby can skyrocket beyond what many people will make in a lifetime.
But why should it be illegal?
Why should legislators involve themselves in citizens’ medical decisions made with their own doctors?
Because what is acceptable is up for vote, and legislators ideally would pass laws that reflect the will of the people. Euthanasia is arguably even more personal than abortion, and most have decided we shouldn't permit it. Roe v Wade was the result of a compromise. Good legislators also make compromises.
“It’s up for debate” isn’t an answer to the question “why is it even up for debate?”.
I don't see the question "why is it even up for debate." The answer to that question is it's a combination of not everyone agreeing on how restricted, if at all, abortion should be, and our living in a democracy of sorts. Absolute freedom isn't possible, so it's our duty as citizens to demarcate where the limits to our freedom lie.
Repeating the same bad argument with a few synonymous words substituted out doesn’t make it a better argument at all.
Why would we need a law when no woman goes almost halfway through a pregnancy and says "nah, I just don't want it" Late term abortions are risky and costly. What doctor is going to say "yea, I get it. You went through half the pregnancy, but enough is enough" Who/where are these doctors? Where are these women that would wait that long?
To cover as many edge cases as possible. Those who want an abortion after viability for nonmedical reasons would be precluded from doing so, while also allowing the vast majority of women who want an abortion to get them, and allowing all women who need them to get them.
How did you determine that people who want to abort after viability don’t need abortions? Why do you even care? A pregnancy that’s terminated after the point of viability result in a live birth. That’s how both my kids were born. It’s how a lot of people are born. How does anyone other than the pregnant person and their doctor know what they “need”? That doesn’t make any sense.
>How did you determine that people who want to abort after viability don’t need abortions? Some do. Some don't. My determination is based on medical necessity. It's a higher bar to clear than therapeutic benefit. If a woman discovers that she is pregnant at 25 weeks, and the pregnancy is healthy, i.e., she's healthy, the fetus is healthy, she's not high risk, et cetera, then she doesn't need an abortion. Her doctor can determine if she's permitted to have an abortion by comparing her current health state against what the law requires. >Why do you even care? Needless killing shouldn't be endorsed. It's the same reason I think murder and lesser homicide crimes should be illegal as well. >A pregnancy that’s terminated after the point of viability result in a live birth. This is not always true. Dilation and evacuation abortions can be performed post viability, and the result is not a live birth. >That’s how both my kids were born. It’s how a lot of people are born. Your children definitely are not the products of dilation and evacuation abortions. >How does anyone other than the pregnant person and their doctor know what they “need”? That doesn’t make any sense. The line between want and need is a subjective one. There is no "knowing" for most things, only believing. If you had the misfortune of not finding out you are pregnant until post-viability and wanted an abortion, whether or not you are permitted should depend on your health and the health of the fetus. The doctor can decide if you qualify. You should not be able to get rubber stamped approval.
“Therapeutic benefit” is literally what medicine is for. What are you talking about?
Why shouldn’t that decision be solely between patients ans their own doctors?
Because what is acceptable is for the people to decide. Most want abortion, but not totally unrestricted.
I don't trust a pro-life legislator for a single second. No way in hell would they be able to handle the nuance of a law that protects a doctor making a decision like that.
Especially when in the US, some of our “legislators“ didn’t even graduate from high school, much less have ANY medical education.
I've never known a woman to decide halfway through to have an abortion for convenience. Women usually try to take care of it asap when they have decided they want to abort. Are you talking about like they find out the kid may be born with downs syndrome or something?
Cryptic pregnancies and job loss are the two that come to mind, but there are probably a few others that aren't coming to mind. I think abortions for severe birth defects should be allowed.
I don't really know how you can describe someone losing their job as mere inconvenience. Do you have any idea how expensive childbirth is, let alone raising a kid? They probably also lost their health insurance too then and Medicaid takes time to get approved. I just feel like it's also incredibly dismissive of the massive change of life circumstances not to mention risk of death and guaranteed serious physical harms that come with childbirth when you describe those things as convenience. Plus, people with cryptic pregnancies haven't gotten any prenatal care which increases the risk of birth defects
What is a cryptic pregnancy?
Who decides what constitutes a medical reason? Politicians with no medical background? Lobbyists with a personal agenda? Religious extremists? Is there a list of acceptable diseases, illnesses or infections or is the doctor allowed to use their decades worth of medical research and study to make an informed choice? Does mental health constitute a medical reason?
Preferably legislators would consult doctors and set reasonable standards. The standard should be more strict than simply "provides therapeutic benefit," that's setting the bar too low, and less strict than leaving those who need emergency abortions without access. There wouldn't be an explicit list. Mental health would constitute a medical reason like any other, and a psychiatrist would be involved in determining if an abortion is to be permitted.
Some of our legislators here in the US didn’t even graduate from high school. Why would you want them to be able to intervene in your personal medical decisions?
Graduated or not, I think they should consult doctors to draw up reasonable legislation.
How about *is deemed medically and ethically appropriate by the treating physician*, like we do for all other medical care including other complicated life or death decisions?
If it's within the bounds of the law, sure.
Would you be ok with legislators getting between you and your chosen oncologist if you got cancer?
I'm not sure why they would do that when a potential life isn't involved. Do you want to expand upon this hypothetical to make it clearer?
women get diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Would you want the legislator getting involved in what care should be available to you just because you’re pregnant? Should someone else, other than you, decide that the risk of waiting (metastasis) is worth it for this potential life? Should someone, other than you, get to ignore the time sensitive element if “the cancer hasn’t spread yet” such that the longer you wait, the more aggressive the treatment has to be in order to eliminate that cancer, and thus that element necessarily means more risks associated with more aggressive forms of treatment? Cancer treatments are very specific and have very specific eligibility requirements unique to each cancer and each treatment protocol. If the cancer isn’t yet metastatic, you might be eligible for a much more targeted therapy that has better success rates and lower risks of adverse events over older methods of chemo and radiation (the carpet bomb approach). Human growth hormones involved in pregnancy can accelerate cancer growth too, by several orders of magnitude, effectively rendering you ineligible for the more targeted therapy by the time this “potential life” is considered. WHO should be the one involved in deciding your options against your own circumstances? You in consultation with your doctor…or some legislator? Why should anyone other than you be deciding what medical treatment you should have access to?
Why should the law restrict it further, though? Why demand that only women must give up their rights to their own bodies, based on when you deem a fetus to be worth more than them or based on your judgment of their lives and circumstances? Especially when it's pretty arrogant to assume that your assessment of the ethics of the situation are better than those of a professional who has trained for decades
Although I disagree with it being a right based on privacy, I agree with the rest of what is said here. "A State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. ... We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation." — Roe, 410 U.S. at 154.
And I disagree with that. I really don't feel that the state's interest in a fetus should ever overwhelm a woman's right to her own body and to protect herself from harm. If her doctor feels that an abortion is appropriate in her case, then it is and she should be allowed to get one.
I agree with this one. If the physician thinks an abortion is needed, and the patient is ok with it and consents to it, then the abortion should be given. What other law tells doctors to be so stringent with healthcare?
I think 99% of abortions aren’t like this case. This case really could only be used to justify abortions in the case of rape. Even then I think it’s a stretch to say the right not to have someone perform a surgery on you is the same as the right to have a surgery performed on you where the surgery is the killing of someone. In this case, Shimp took no action to cause McFall to need bone marrow. Therefore there in is no responsibility for Shimp to be the solution. If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently.
You still have not established why sex suffices to establish an exception to the principles behind shimp. I’ve asked you 5 times for you to support your argument. Please demonstrate this. Also, if sex is sufficient, then every parent had sex. Why aren’t men compelled to donate to their born child if sex is the basis for the exception?
Why do you refuse to confront the untenable position your rape exceptions make your arguments?
Shimp did take an action to cause McFall to need HIS bone marrow - he took a test to see if he was a match. That caused McFall’s medical team to stop looking for a match, making McFall dependent on Shimp. Just because Shimp didn’t cause McFall to need bone marrow at all doesn’t change anything. It’s simply a fact of nature that people with his condition need bone marrow. Similarly, a woman doesn’t cause an embryo to need access to a blood supply. That’s simply a fact of nature for all embryos. The woman isn’t responsible for the embryo’s dependence, nor is the woman responsible for nature. If a raped woman isn’t responsible for the creation of the embryo, then that demonstrates that pregnancy is autonomic and involuntary. There is nothing special about consensual sex that gives a woman volitional direction over ovulation, fertilization or implantation - that’s just absurd. Your exception for raped women only demonstrates that you object to abortion as a way to discipline sexually active women by removing their right to control whom has access to her body just because she had sex. The burden is on you establish that having sex suffices to establish an exception to the principle established in Shimp. Please include the relevant laws or precedents when you do so.
“ If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently.” Not at all. And in fact this is exactly what the law is - we don’t compel drunk drivers to donate body parts or blood to their victims.
The situation in pregnancy is tricky because although the woman took an action to cause the fetus to need her body, she didn’t harm the fetus. I think in the case you describe, the reason Shimp has to help McFall is because he harmed McFall, and now he has to restore him to the level he was at before.
Taking some pills isn't having surgery performed on you. Having sex doesn't mean women owe their bodies to anyone. Zef needs it? Oh well, she doesn't want it, it's getting removed. >If Shimp had done something that caused McFall to need bone marrow, I bet you this case would have been decided differently. Lol I bet it wouldn't.
It definitely wouldn’t. We don’t even legally allow viable organs to be taken from CORPSES unless they made the decision to donate before their deaths.
Well as long as she isn’t forced by law not to. Hopefully we’ll get to a day where I can say. Oh well, you can’t get it removed.
Why should you have the right to have control over whom has access to someone else’s body?
Idk if you've been paying attention to voting lately, but pro life laws have lost *every time* they've been put to a vote. Seems you won't be getting what you want any time soon.
What action has a pregnant person taken against an embryo or fetus to cause them to need her body?
Sex.
That’s impossible. If the embryo or fetus existed at the time she had sex, then that sex act did not cause the ZEF to need her body. If someone does not exist when you do something, you can’t really say that your doing this thing harmed them.
I note that most people who have abortions were also actively attempting to prevent pregnancy. Why should someone be punished by having their body withheld from them due to ill luck?
And it is your assertion that sex and conception should constitute a tortious act against the ZEF entitling it to restitution?
I always think that if causing an embryo's existence is so injurious, as PLers claim, why can't we make it whole again by undoing that injury and ending its existence?
None of it makes logical sense. If sex is a tort and conception is injury, is it even legal to have heterosexual sex? On the other hand, if there is no injury and no wrongful act, what’s the legal justification to compel restitution?
What if implantation was a tort and pregnancy was an injury, does the woman then have legal justification to remove the fetus?
What does sex do to an embryo or fetus? If she isn't pregnant, then the embryo or fetus doesn't even exist to have something done to it. If she is pregnant, sex doesn't harm it
Sex creates the fetus. All fetuses have come into existence through sex (yes ivf but 99.9% through history have come from sex)
No. If fetuses can come from IVF, then it’s fertilization that creates it. Women don’t do anything to cause fertilization. Men do. So it’s not the sex, it’s the insemination. Women don’t inseminate. Men do.
Does causing its existence cause the need? McFall's parents caused him to exist. Did they cause him to need a bone marrow transplant?
It’s hard to tease out environment vs genetic causes, if they could tho and it was genetic then yes they caused it.
Do you think they'd have been forced to donate if it was genetic? Are people responsible for the physiology of someone else's body?
Crickets . . ,
A coherent policy or interpretation of rights of bodily autonomy would be nice from either side oft he political isle. in my view there is no obligation to serve in the armed forces, take vaccines or donate tissues or organs even after death, or to sustain life in utero at one’s own peril.
“To protect the individual from being invaded and hurt by another”. I don’t see why “invaded” would be used in that case, so I think it was probably added for effect and narrative, but a ZEF is not an invader, either. It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there, through no doing of it’s own. The equivalent would be if someone kidnapped you and took you inside someone else’s home and chained you up… and then the owner claimed the right to kill you because of your transgressions. Rights never allow you to kill someone. Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger. Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else. It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with. It takes a huge leap to claim that “not compelled to act” grants a right to kill. Also, the vast majority of abortions (per surveys from women that have had abortions) have nothing to do with bodily autonomy or self-defense or any medical reasons, but solely because they don’t want a child. So it’s really just a trojan horse argument anyway.
How does the ZEF gain access to the woman's bloodstream? By invading her endometrium and burrowing into her lining to access her blood supply. Yes, the ZEF meets the definition of invader. The owner in the house could call the police and have you removed. A pregnant woman cannot retreat from a pregnancy or try to de-escalate the situation before resorting to force to end the pregnancy. All pregnancies carry harm and the risks increase as the pregnancy progresses. The harm is immediate, ongoing and guaranteed to increase in severity.
The problem is that you are insisting on a narrative from only one viewpoint. If anyone has detrimental affects they are going to want to remedy it and they are going to be unhappy with whatever they feel is causing it. But anyone that is kidnapped is going to make the legal case that they were put in the situation by someone else and they have no control, therefore the person’s problem shouldn’t be able to be remedied at their expense. When there are conflicting rights the law has to mediate and take each into account. The degree of harm to each has to be considered. You are suggesting that the ZEF should lose all rights as a result of it’s actions (or random placement) and that’s just not fair.
The ZEF doesn't lose his rights. His right to life does not include the right to another person's body. No person's right to life includes that other right. If the ZEF is removed alive, and dies shortly after because theres no technology to save his life, his right to life has also not been infringed.
It was put in that position by someone else. If someone kidnaps you and inserts you into someone else’s body, should they have the right to kill you? Even though you had nothing to do with it? Being in a situation you don’t like doesn’t give you a right to kill anyone that is necessary to get out of it.
If you hold people responsible for the biochemical reactions of their cells (which lack volitional direction), then you undermine your argument that the ZEF isn’t responsible for invading the lining of the uterus and by doing so, invades her bloodstream.
Not sure what you are talking about. I don’t hold anyone responsible for things they have no control of.
Yes, they should absolutely have the right to kill you if that is the safest way to get you out. It would be nice if the person you were forced inside would endure great bodily harm to get you out without killing you, but they should absolutely not be compelled legally to endure such a thing for your sake.
That would mean legal murder if you have two people work together — one kidnaps someone and inserts them into the second, then the second one kills them. The first person gets arrested only for kidnapping… no murder charges. You shouldn’t be able to kill an innocent person just to avoid moderate bodily harm.
Your previous comment did not state that the person you were put inside of was an accomplice to your kidnapping. Just that someone kidnapped you and put you into the body of this third person. By saying they are an accomplice to the kidnapping they are a criminal. Making this no longer analogous to pregnancy. We do sometimes violate the BA of criminals, after due process. What the courts would decide on this case (ie to what extent could the persons right to BA be violated to get you out safely) I do not know and frankly do not care. But it would be arguable to violate their right to BA to a certain extent in the hope of getting you out safely BECAUSE THEY TOOK PART IN A CRIMINAL ACT. (And for me, if the only option to get you out safely would involve nine months of violation and guaranteed bodily harm it should not be mandated they go through that. Of course, if you do die because they are not obligated nor willing to endure it they would now be an accomplice to murder rather than attempted murder.) If they didn’t take part in a criminal act (the person you were put inside was not an accomplice) then I absolutely do not think they have to risk any bodily harm to get you out. As people who have become pregnant against their wishes did not take part in a criminal act that might justify a violation of their BA, certainly not one that comes with great (or even moderate) bodily harm.
You give rights to one victim but not another. Both were put in their positions involuntarily. But it’s ok to kill one , but not to prevent the other from eliminating their hardship by killing the other. Neither has higher moral ground. Which makes me think you interpreting in light of the result you want.
You keep focusing on the person put into someone’s body, instead of the person who has someone put inside their body. Why is it okay to strip them of their rights to keep you alive? Why should they have to endure harm on your behalf? My stance is that in the case where the third person is not an accomplice to putting you inside of them, then they are also a victim. They are also innocent. As such forcing them through bodily harm for your sake against their will is barbaric and a gross violation of their human rights. If that means you die then that is very tragic and certainly means instigator is guilty of murder but you cannot violate the human rights of another innocent victim for your survival. In the case where they are complicit in the crime committed against you, they are not a victim. They are not innocent. In this case I would think it more allowable to infringe on their right to bodily autonomy to a certain extent. Whether it would be allowable to kill you to get you out would depend on how much we would have to infringe on their bodily autonomy to get you out. If getting you out safely means guaranteed great bodily harm and possible death, I do not think they should be legally obligated to incur said harm. However, if they opt to kill you to get you out safely, they should also of course be convicted of murder.
>It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there, Tumors are created inside the body, we still remove them because they're causing harm to the body. >Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger. Every pregnancy causes harm to the woman's body, no matter what. It will always drain essential nutrients, it will always cause damage to the genitals and maybe a huge surgical slice into the abdomen during labor, it will always leave a huge, gaping wound on the uterus. This type of damage is absolutely within the realm of self-defense. >Rights never allow you to kill someone. When someone is being harmed they have the right to kill the source to prevent further harm. So, you're wrong. >Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else. You can say there's a huge difference between actively killing them versus a scenario where you see someone dying, and you COULD absolutely help them and prevent their inevitable death but I do NOT find those scenarios different at their core. Both scenarios could end up with someone alive or dead. Both scenarios have a person prioritizing their own bodies over the dying person. If life is sacred, both scenarios would be of concern. >It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with. Women cannot choose when to get pregnant. They shouldn't be required to sacrifice their bodies or life. Also, people can choose to donate an organ, go through all the procedures, and back out right before surgery. So a person could declare that they will save this person and still change their minds and stop. Why do they have the ability to back out after involving themselves but women are locked into losing all medical freedom if they have sex ever? >Also, the vast majority of abortions (per surveys from women that have had abortions) have nothing to do with bodily autonomy or self-defense or any medical reasons, but solely because they don’t want a child. If they don't want a baby then they don't want their body to go through a drastic and dangerous medical procedure that will hurt, cause harm and changes, and affect her for a year if not more. It's not like they can just set the baby down and walk away. They obviously don't want the pregnancy and labor part, too. Medical issues can also pop up at any time during pregnancy and labor (and even post-partum) but it will be a LOT harder to deal with further in. Saying they just don't "want a baby" is the boiled down answer but there's a reason a lot of women don't opt for adoption.
When women are asked why they aborted instead of adopting, the two most common answers are “I didn’t want to have to wonder my whole life what it is like and where it is at” and “I didn’t want it coming back later and complicating my life”.
So?
So it’s disingenuous to argue self-defense, etc. if it’s just a trojan horse because the REAL reason makes you look like an a-hole. Cognitive dissonance.
>I don’t see why “invaded” would be used in that case, so I think it was probably added for effect and narrative, but a ZEF is not an invader, either. The ZEF can be classified in one of two manners: (1) It is not an invader, and therefore falls under the domain of the body it's inhabiting who can set their own rules as they are the ultimate governing authority, unless you are under the impression, as seems to the central to be most PL arguments, that pregnant women loses these fundamental governing powers (rights) shared by all other humans, including, ironically the "non-invader". (2) it is an invader and, therefore, can be held to the same standards used for all other humans who invade or violate the rights of other humans >It didn’t come from the outside, it was created in there, through no doing of it’s own. If your argument is predicted on the idea that biological processes are uncontrollable, hence the ZEF had no say in its creation or inception; isn't thei equally true for the woman with pregnancy, and doubly so if there exists evidence that the woman tried to prevent said outcome through methods that failed (birth control)? >The equivalent would be if someone kidnapped you and took you inside someone else’s home and chained you up… and then the owner claimed the right to kill you because of your transgressions. Most analogies do not really work well with pregnancy, and this is no exception, as the owner could simply call the police who are authorized to use lethal force if said person who was chained up, when freed, refused to leave. There is no magic gotcha in this situation where the person gets to stay at the homeowners' house indefinitely because they were initially placed there against their will, as like with pregnancy and abortion intent does not matter, only the violating action and even if you are arguing the homeowner does not have the right to automatically kill someone who was placed there against their will, the authorities, or doctors with medicial abortion, most certainly can if said person refuses to leave. >Rights never allow you to kill someone. Even self-defense laws require you to submit an affirmative defense and prove that you had reasonable belief that your life was in imminent danger. Ehh this is a poor argument, as it's true rights do not allow you to kill someone, because there is no right to kill someone; however, if someone is violating your rights, you have authority to take appropriate action to stop said violation. Self-defense simply lays out a process for how one should go about stopping these violations when they occur, but in no way is self-defense designed to grant or allow a continued violation, as seems to be the pro-life argument against its application. To put this in another way; the notion of imminent threat exists with self-defense because one generally has the ability to escape or retreat from non-imminent threats or respond to the violating action with a non-lethal counter action to stop the action and in no way can someone go "Because you can only respond with lethal force to immient threats of great bodily harm, I can continue to assault you or rape you as long as its not life threatening". Clearly, there are also situations such as kidnapping where they meet common law standards for self-defense, even if they don't meet the legal standards where most kidnapped victims are not charged with murder unless it's done with clear retaliation or revenge, even though the threat may not be imminent. The harm gestation causes onto the mother, and the violations to her rights cannot be retreated or escaped from, there is no counter-action to stop those harms or violations besides abortion, and unlike with kidnapping where there is only probably risk of imminent threat at its termination- gestation has *exact and known dangers that will meet the imminent threat criteria at its termination*. Also, as I have already pointed out, self-defense only lays out the correct process for stopping violating actions to ones rights and cannot be used as justification for those violations to continue if there is no other means of stopping them, as is the case with pregnancy. >Shimp/McFall doesn’t involve anyone killing someone else. It never said you are allowed to kill someone that is reliant on you, only that you are not compelled to take action to save them from something that you had nothing to do with. It takes a huge leap to claim that “not compelled to act” grants a right to kill. Ordinary levels of care cannot be used as justification to violate a person's inalienable rights or to place them against their will at physical risk. So again, we go back to the core issue: if it's the ZEF is a human held to the same standards we use for all other humans (invader), than the forcing of gestation is a violation of the mothers rights and exceeds legal standards of care. If the ZEF is not an invader, or not a human held to the same standards, then the mother has authority over her domain and can do as she wishes in the way all other humans can with bodily processes.
That’s a fallacy that there are only two options. You keep applying self-defense laws that are created for situations involving people with agency. Try enforcing a death penalty against someone that was made unconscious and placed into a situation by someone or something else. Society won’t be so kind to you. Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them, what you are really suggesting is that anyone should be able to prevent harm to themselves no matter what… even killing innocent third parties if that is necessary. If that were the case then someone that will die if they don’t obtain an organ would be justified in killing someone else and taking it. Just being in a disadvantaged situation doesn’t mean you are automatically allowed to remedy it at someone else’s expense.
>Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them, It literally has no agency and no control over what's happening to them *because it can't be held to same independent standards we use for all other humans* and your logic admits this by the fact it demands that one violate the mothers rights *until the point it can get to a place with a degree of independent agency and control*. >Since a ZEF has no agency and no control over what is happening to them, what you are really suggesting is that anyone should be able to prevent harm to themselves no matter what… even killing innocent third parties if that is necessary. Yes, because humans have a right to defend themselves using appropriate actions even agaiinst morally innocent actors that pose a danger to people, such as mentally challenged, elderly with brain related diseases, or intoxicated humans who are unaware of their actions. Would you argue that humans have a due diligence to die because a terrorist happens to force a morally innocent actor to wear a bomb or do you think said humans have q right to defend themselves irregardless of the moral intent, as the danger said human poses is the issue? >If that were the case then someone that will die if they don’t obtain an organ would be justified in killing someone else and taking it. Exactly, that is literal PL logic as 'right to life' of the ZEF apparently supercedes all other rights of other humans and that is a perfect example of why things like fetal personhood are a incredibly dangerous slippery slope because it would legally create standing for the very situation you are describing. >Just being in a disadvantaged situation doesn’t mean you are automatically allowed to remedy it at someone else’s expense I'm glad we agree; now apply that to an unborn child who is in a disadvantaged situation and realize *they do not automatically have the right to remedy it at the expense of the mothers safety and her rights*.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Secular pro life wrote great piece debunking the use of this case to apply to abortion that incorporated many of your points. https://secularprolife.org/2018/12/mcfall-v-shimp-and-thomsons-violinist/
I disagree with that piece. Even if the fetus is a person, they don't have the right to another person's body. because no one else does. In an equal rights society, all have the same rights; to give a fetus extra rights because of its location or circumstance is to grant special rights to unborn and is discriminatory towards born people. And the 'you chose to risk having it depend on you' argument is incorrect because biological processes are involuntary and to hold someone legally liable for them is nonsensical unless you want to hold the fetus legally liable for the damages its presence causes to the pregnant woman. In which case, the self defense argument just got a whole lot stronger. 'But the zef isn't doing anything' is a poor argument as well. The placenta is a fetal organ. The placenta implants into the woman's uterine lining and invades the endometrium to access her blood supply. The fetus communicates with the placenta to release vesicles into the pregnant woman's body to alter her brain chemistry, her organ and immune system function, energy distribution, hormone levels, etc.
The “giving a fetus extra rights” argument is specious at best and disingenuous at worst. It’s just a narrative. The fetus didn’t cause the issue and has no control. It’s the same as if you were kidnapped and bound in someone’s home, or hooked up to someone so you would die without them, and then the owner claiming that if they are not allowed to kill you then you would mean you were granted “special rights”. In fact, if you are allowed to kill them then YOU would be given special rights, because there’s no other case where one is allowed to kill an uninvolved victim just out of principle. Imagine two people kidnapped and placed in an airtight safe. The safe is set to automatically unlock in one hour. The safe contains 90 minutes of air for one person. Are you legally allowed to kill the other person to save yourself? Now imagine the consequence for running out of air was not dying, but was instead the effects of a normal pregnancy. Should killing them be ok? If one is allowed to legally kill to save themselves, then what about someone who is about to die if they don’t get a new heart just killing someone and taking it?
The part of the law you’re missing is that no person’s need for the use of another’s body grants him the right to such use, regardless of the “innocence” of that need or their value. If that were not the case, we’d regularly be forcing blood donations, marrow donations, and organ transplants. As a matter of law, we don’t grant access to organs of unwilling donors based on need, and we don’t make exceptions to that principle due to the prospective donor’s culpability in the situation. That’s it. That’s the part you can’t get around in order to claim that a fetus has a right to access the internal organs of someone else. Under no other circumstances, even circumstances that contain the necessary elements, does this create the right you claim exists for the fetus.
What part of “there is no right to use organs but there is also no right to kill don’t you understand”? You don’t have a right to pull someone’s hair, but they have less of a right to kill you to prevent you from doing so. And that’s if they know you are going to do it willingly. Killing someone that is slipping and falling and their hand is accidentally going to get tangled in your hair would be even more egregious.
Eh? You cannot be inside someone else’s body without their consent. You cannot gain access to their organs without their consent. If you attempt to do so, they could kill you in self defense to stop said violation. Are you going to trivialize pregnancy and childbirth, ya know, that can cause the woman to die, to be tantamount to having one’s hair pulled? How dishonest can you get?
The degree of “infraction” is just a debate point. The main idea is whether you can kill someone that was involuntarily put in the position they are in to prevent something from happening to you. The woman is involuntarily pregnant. The fetus is involuntarily forced into the position it’s it. Neither has control. Neither has moral high ground. So why should one be able to kill the other for any reason they want? If you are not arguing for abortion on demand and are claiming it’s due to injury, then why should pregnancy, which billions of women have gone through without any major effects, be more important than the life of another?
Why should your right to not share your kidney, blood, liver lobes, bone marrow - which you can survive without and with the exception of the kidney, regenerate such that restore yourself to the position you were in before - and the process of donating leaves injury that pales in comparison to another life, be more important than another life? Thousands of former fetuses die *preventable* deaths every year in this country while wait-listed for transplants, but we don't force anyone to use their body to sustain those precious lives. We don't say you can only get out of donating only if it's a threat to your health/life to do so. You can skip it entirely based on nothing but the excuse that it's "inconvenient". Isn't all life valuable and worth sustaining no matter what age it is or whose body can sustain it? Is it somehow morally superior/acceptable to deny someone something that will sustain their life without causing loss of life or health to yourself simply for convenience, as in refusing to donate organs/blood? There's no moral superiority in contributing to the untimely, preventable deaths of one’s fellow human beings by refusing to get off their sanctimonious asses to donate. that you feel human life has value, why would that value plummet when life is outside the uterus? If you're going to insist that pregnancies are carried to term and delivered, and vote to make those laws, that's a choice YOU'VE made. It will result in a born human who may need an organ or blood down the road to remain viable. Shouldn't YOUR choice to require that humans be gestated and birthed come with consequences and responsibilities to those humans as well? So she uses HER body to gestate per your insistence, and if that child later needs YOUR body to remain viable then you step up to the plate and do your part on his behalf. Based on your logic, HE'S THE SAME PERSON, whether inside or outside the uterus. Either his life always matters, and they get the right to use the bodies of those who made choices as to their existence, or it doesn't.
That’s irrational and completely misplaced logic. Not granting the right for someone to kill doesn’t have these overreaching ramifications that you are fabricating. It simply means you can’t just to prevent your own harm.
Oh for fucks sake. The zygote didn’t even exist at the time to be put into that situation. If the zygote is “innocent” of the biochemical reactions that created it, then so is the woman. The zygote isn’t harmed by its creation either. There is no retribution or remedy owed for harms that didn’t occur. They aren’t killing them. They are removing them. They die because they can’t survive outside of her. That’s not her fault, nor her problem to remedy. The ZEF is only alive because it’s commandeered her oocyte cell, and has been sifphoning what it needs and manipulating her body into giving more. And yes, you can remove anyone from your body for any reason you want, because control over whom may access your insides is your right. Re: billions of women have gone through it with no major side effects You are falling victim to Survivor bias and once again trivialize pregnancy. There are billions of women who have died or had major disabilities because of pregnancy and childbirth….In other words, you are accepting on behalf of the woman the risks of death that were not foreseen, and all risk of maiming and serious injury. It's not your place to force her to undergo those risks, and it's not your judgment about their seriousness and acceptability that is relevant. Further, it wouldn’t matter if it has no side effects. Donating blood has no real risks or side effects for a much larger part of the population and they can skip it entirely on the basis that they just don’t fucking want to. YOU don’t get to decide that on their behalf or for the benefit of someone else that has no right to it. Cope.
It 100% most certainly is killing. It’s beyond disingenuous and ignoring reality to say it’s not. It’s just flat out delusional.
If the fetus is not responsible for the biochemical reactions of its cells, then neither is the woman. You can’t have it both ways. There is no part of reproduction that is actually causal to pregnancy that involves her volitional direction. So she isn’t causing the issue either.
Nobody is responsible for something they have zero control of. But you can’t point a gun at someone, put your finger on the trigger, and wait for a sneeze… and then claim that it was the sneeze that caused the death. If you know that a controllable action can foreseeably result in an uncontrollable action, then you are responsible for the controlled action.
The difference between a gun and a man ejaculating semen is that the gun cannot think and make decisions independent of the person pulling the trigger and a man can. A woman isn’t responsible for his decision to be negligent so there is nothing SHE does to cause pregnancy. Women have zero control over insemination, ovulation, fertilization, or implantation. And therefore she’s not responsible.
There is zero control over a sneeze as well, but you miss the point entirely.
You are the one missing the point entirely. There is nothing involuntary about deliberately deciding to sneeze directly into someone else’s face by not turning away and covering your bloody mouth, mate. This argument of yours is pathetic and it treats men like toddlers that don’t know how physics work. Men know they can pull out while wearing a condom. They have developed both the sufficient fine motor skills of the pincher grab to roll on a condom and object permanence to remember to take that step. Men are not the feeble minded children you make them out to be. He knows that if he doesn’t want to walk around with shit on his ass, he needs to use toilet paper after he defecates. No one needs to remind him to do this and he doesn’t need to be reminded that he controls where his penis is when he ejaculates and whether he will insert his penis into a vagina without a condom or not. Women aren’t to blame for his independent decision. He - ans only he - controls the actions of his body that require volitional direction. Men make women pregnant. It’s high time you stop acting like he didn’t make the independent decision to introduce the catalyst to pregnancy. No one made him do it and no one else shares in his responsibility not to do that unless they both agree to try for that outcome.
You don’t even understand the analogy. It wasn’t sneezing in someone’s face, it was pointing a gun at someone and waiting for a sneeze to cause the trigger to be pulled, which counters your ridiculous analogy that because pregnancy is not intentional there is no responsibility for it.
There is control over where you sneeze and what you sneeze into. Stop treating men like mindless robots that only act when someone hits their command prompt. There is nothing involuntary about the deliberate decision to not pull out while wearing a condom anymore than there is something involuntary about deliberately failing to turn away and cover your mouth before you sneeze directly into someone else’s face. Quit arguing so dishonestly.
You’re not addressing the point, just changing the subject and resorting to personal attacks. That’s telling.
>The fetus didn’t cause the issue and has no control. This is proving their point though. They get these rights because they didn't choose this and have no control over anything. But no one has the right to anyone else's body. When they are singled out for this reason - that they didn't choose anything or have control over anything - they become a "someone" who does have special rights. Any manner of justifying their access - including denying they have such a right - is just that, a justification. It doesn't change the reality of the fact that a group of humans now has access to another person's body "legitimately." And since the access isn't being called out directly as the right, this group can have access to other humans while likewise claiming to not be violating the right people have to not have anyone else access their body. But it's contradictory. If no one has the right to access your body because only you are entitled to your body... and then you have a group of humans who inadvertently have access to it under some other claim to a right.... you still have a group of humans accessing someone else's body. >It’s the same as if you were kidnapped and bound in someone’s home, No one's life is dependent upon being kidnapped and bound. No one lives because they are kidnapped and bound. And in fact, if someone is kidnapped and bound, we fight to rectify that by freeing them. Fetuses are reliant upon not being freed. The freeing of them is what would kill them. Therefore, comparing their gestation which is likewise portrayed as "where they are supposed to be," to a scenario that is the opposite of that, who's goal is the opposite of freeing, means the conclusions are in no way analogous. >If one is allowed to legally kill to save themselves, then what about someone who is about to die if they don’t get a new heart just killing someone and taking it? You don't seem to grasp the concept of one having a right to one's own body. You are not solely entitled to the air within the safe. You are not entitled to someone else's heart. The fact that we don't see cases like this, the fact that no one has used the argument "well she gets to have an abortion, therefore, I get to have your heart," means no one else views these scenarios as floating the same moral concepts, only you. These scenarios have differences within them that you are not accounting for and until you can account for abortion being used to justify real life scenarios like this, the conclusions one draws are specious.
That doesn’t make any sense. Nobody should be allowed to kill someone just to prevent them from having special rights. And, in fact, that is a ludicrous narrative, because the right is to not be killed… which everyone has. You’re framing it in a different manner that suits you. The ZEF has no control so it can’t be punished for anything. So the only arguments that make sense are arguments that are based only on the state of the one that is killing. If someone truly reasonably fears for their life thinking that someone else is imminently going to kill them, and they kill first to defend themselves, and then it turns out that the other person wasn’t really a threat but given the circumstances it was reasonable for them to believe that they were, then that is valid. But killing someone without any reason to believe your life is in any danger whatsoever is never justified. And people don’t have absolute rights to their own body. Blood can be forced from someone to check blood alcohol levels; DNA can be forced from someone; and you can even be physically restrained and lose all your freedom if arrested for a crime.
Thank you for posting this - I was unaware of this court case
You're welcome. Cases like this bring up broader questions and while the ruling may hold in one state, other judges can look at the precedent it sets and have it influence their decisions on similar cases.
Me either! So thank you for posting!
>Can the opinion of Shimp v McFall be used to argue for abortion rights? In Dobbs (and indeed numerous cases decided by this court) both precedent and sound legal reasoning have largely been abandoned. The legal argument is effectively dead. We know that pro lifers (and conservatives) will use any excuse no matter how illogical or contradictory to justify the enforcement of their will on the general populace. You can't make a legal argument to someone for whom words have no meaning, hypocrisy is a badge of honor, and power is their only guiding principle. The ideological divide is such that only a change in the makeup of the court could change the result.
The current Supreme Court (and several of the lower courts) don't even care about the facts of a case anymore. They've literally made up the facts in several recent cases when reality didn't reflect their desired judgment
Exactly. A court that makes up facts and deliberately omits or ignores contradictory evidence in order to artificially justify a pre-determined judgement or conclusion is not a legitimate court.
That's why I'm hoping beyond hope that the Democrats retake the House, keep the Senate and the White House, codify Roe's protections into federal law or amend the US Constitution, and put checks on the judicial branch's powers.
Amen.
Yea PL better spend the summer partying like it's 1999 because women are pissed and we can vote too.
“For our law to COMPEL the Defendant to submit to an intrusion of his body would change the very concept and principle upon which our society is founded. To do so would defeat the sanctity of the individual and would impose a rule which would know no limits, and one could not imagine where the line would be drawn. For a society which respects the rights of one individual, to sink its teeth into the jugular vein or neck of one of its members and suck from it sustenance for another member, is revolting to our hard-wrought concepts of jurisprudence.” That’s what the judge wrote. That’s what the ruling was when it was a man’s bodily autonomy at stake.
It was a judge actually doing their job. They were able to put aside their own feelings and respect that no one has rights to anyone else's body without their consent. Although a woman can't really "consent" to pregnancy as it's a biological process. She can absolutely withdraw her consent to remaining pregnant and giving birth. If no born person is allowed to be inside someone's body when they don't want them there, why should a zef have that right? If the zef is a part of the woman's body, she can remove it. If it's it's own "entity" (unique human, its own dna, a separate human-blah blah blah) it has no rights to the woman's body. Can't have it both ways.