[Peace-discuss] abortion rights argument

[Ricky Baldwin]

Sorry, I'm trimming my "To" line on the theory that you only need one copy of my thoughts :-)  Also, I'm changing the subject line to reflect what the discussion is actually about now that it has diverged significantly from the question of placing an ad...

Here's the thing I want to say in response to your arguments, Wayne.  I believe your analogy about violence doesn't work really.  The use of billy clubs, etc., against people differs in several aspects from a case of aborted pregnancy.  Chief among them, some would argue, is that billy clubs are not medical instruments.  While true, of course, violence against another person could easily involve medical instruments.  I believe some famous movies I haven't seen illustrate this gruesome prospect.

The more pertinent difference, in my view, is that those forms of violence you mention involve a person *outside* one's body, a person moreover who is not directly dependent on one, a person who is not directly *draining* the stuff of life from one for his or her own purposes.

It's not my own preferred argument in favor of abortion rights, which involves 'personhood' and mental capacity - but that one has been discussed on this list numerous times in the past - so I'd like to mention another argument I remember reading in college for a biomedical ethics course I took.  (I made an A, by the way ;-)  It's an argument that even if a fetus is a 'full person' (a big 'if'), the fetus has no absolute "right to life" in any particular person's womb.

Consider a person who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with another person lying in the same bed.  The other person is sleeping.  Upon inspection, the first person discovers to her horror that the second person is attached to her by a bundle of tubes and cords of various sizes and shapes.  It turns out the other person cannot live without her, at least for a number of months, and even separating the two (prematurely) will result in death of the other.  Allowing the attachment to remain could cause death to the first person, but the doctors say there is not a huge chance of that in today's hospitals.  

What is likely, however, is some form of permanent effect on the first person (the "host"?), which could include sudden onset of diabetes, high blood pressure, or other serious conditions, ranging down to less serious effects like a permanent increase in shoe size.  The separation at the end of the several-month period will also likely be extremely painful for the first person (and I'd add: after which time she will be legally responsible for the other person for some years absent certain awkward but not impossible procedures, which are however stigmatized quite harshly).  

However there is a safe, clean, legal alternative, not too awfully expensive, that will terminate the connection and the other person's life.

The question is: is the first person ethically *obliged* to go through with this?  

Undoubtedly some of us would decide to sacrifice ourselves in such a hypothetical case.  The question is not, however, what would you do?  The question is, does the person *have* to go through with it?  The answer from the ethicist who invented this scenario is that the answer must be, No.  After some squirming, and protesting, I have to admit that I agree.

It isn't a perfect analogy to pregnancy and termination, but it illustrates a point.  That is, even leaving aside the question of personhood of the fetus (a big enough question), it is by no means clear that anyone is under this severe an obligation to any other person ethically.  We humanitarians do not like to end human life, and I think none of us would do so lightly.  But sometimes our choices are not that simple.

And, could I just add by way of aside, that in my own book both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are silly euphemisms.  If you're anti-abortion, pposed to abortion, or a supporter of abortion rights, or reproductive freedom, just say so.  My 2c again.

 Ricky


"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn




________________________________
From: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
To: Ron Szoke <r-szoke at illinois.edu>
Cc: Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 1:36:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fw: CCHCC Annual Dinner & Adbook -- AWARE

Ron Szoke wrote: 
This page was sent to you by:  r-szoke at illinois.edu 

INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS   | March 28, 2009 
Amid Abuse of Girls in Brazil, Abortion Debate Flares 
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO 

The case of a 9-year-old who had an abortion after saying she was raped has 
revived a debate over abortion rights. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/world/americas/28brazil.html?
emc=eta1

Comments:  

1.  Is "pro-life" an euphemism?  For what, exactly?

Pro-life is anti-abortion.  Some of the opposition calls it anti-choice.

Pro-life means to me that I support the right to life, and therefore a
future, for all people.


2.  Is all surgery on female bodies "violence against women?"   On only on 
pregnant women?  Or only on certain parts of pregnant women?  How do you 
decide?  (Suppose the surgery is to remove a tapeworm.)

Minor surgery is when they cut on someone else.  If it involves cutting
on me, its a Big Deal.

Wikipaedia says:  Violence is the expression of physical
force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on
pain of being hurt.

I would suppose then that surgery is seldom violence against a woman. 
Mutilation is something else.

The baby that she carries and nurtures in the womb is not part of her. 
It's easy to prove.  Check
the baby's genetic material.  Clearly the baby is not part of the
woman's body.

Generally it is not a good analogy to compare a baby with a tapeworm. 
Usually we reserve
that analogy until after the baby has several years of age on it.


3.  Note that my question was:  Are there any good philosophical arguments for 
the view that abortion is NOT wrong?  It was NOT a request for a general 
argument in support of abortion, only of abortion RIGHTS -- a very different 
matter.  There was no response to the question.  

It has been made clear time and again that the right to liberty does
not include the right to harm others,
particularly not the right to harm the innocent.

4.  Once again, we have seen only slogans, doctrines & evasions on the 
question of how far the "pro-life" people are willing to go in preventing or 
punishing abortion.  Should those who engage in it  ultimately have to face the 
guns & billyclubs of the police for having broken the law?  What if the woman 
has been raped, is a victim of incest, or her life is endangered by the 
pregnancy?

Endangerment of life by pregnancy appears to be a myth.  The source of
the baby's genetic material is no excuse for killing it.

Will we now receive yet another dose of slogans,  metaphysical doctrines, 
evasions, red herrings & idealistic effusions  in response?  Watch this space.  

Who knows?

-- Ron

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