Abortion in the case of rape

[Dryden77]

See below for a response to self defense. As far as bodily integrity goes, I cannot believe you cited New Advent, which completely contradicts what you are trying to prove. A pregnancy is not life threatening, and just because someone bumps into you over even pushes you, you cannot respond with deadly force, that too is an infraction against bodily integrity. In fact the very sentence after the one you quote says: “It must be observed however that no more injury may be inflicted on the assailant than is necessary to defeat his purpose.” So what is the fetus’ purpose in invading ones bodily integrity? You have not listed what makes someone an aggressor, and how those attributes apply to a fetus, (either a fetus conceived during rape or any other method).

1. You science is off. Once conception occurs, the sperm, that participated in the conception, is no longer present, and neither is the egg. So via your logic (with the correct science), the aggressor (even the unintentional aggressor) is gone, in its place in something new. You have not proven that this new entity, the fetus, is an aggressor (even an innocent one), you merely assert. What distinguishes this fetus with any other fetus, how come they both cannot be considered aggressors? Since fetuses are generally the same, what makes this fetus (not the sperm) an aggressor? Is it the fetus’s DNA, or its wantedness, since those are the only things that are really different between fetuses of the same gestational age.

Your church does not teach that a person may use deadly force only in “life threatening” situations. Catholicism teaches that deadly force may be used (for example) even against a thief. (“It is lawful to defend one’s material goods even at the expense of the aggressor’s life; for neither justice nor charity require that one should sacrifice possessions, even though they be of less value than human life in order to preserve the life of a man who wantonly exposes it in order to do an injustice.”) newadvent.org/cathen/13691a.htm

Just so we don’t get confused here: I’m not suggesting that the fetus is a thief. Please let’s not belabor this. My aim in quoting New Advent is only to establish the Catholic principle that a person may, with no sin, and in certain circumstances, deliberately kill a person who poses no threat whatsoever to his life. If we don’t understand this we can’t proceed.

Bodily integrity, as your church defines and values it, is even more defensible than property. Bodily integrity means that one’s body is (and ought to be) free of foreign invaders (especially including appendages of human beings). Your church says that one is entitled to use deadly force to repel foreign invaders even for short periods of time. Nothing remotely approaching a life-threatening situation is needed to justify deadly force when bodily integrity is threatened.

You wanted to know what makes the fetus in our scenario so special. (“What distinguishes this fetus with any other fetus…?”) Glad you asked. This fetus is special because it doesn’t belong to the woman it inhabits. The woman who carries it is not its mother, nor is she its willing surrogate mother. You seem preoccupied with the process of sperm being absorbed into egg and then both sperm and egg dissolving into a fetus. This preoccupation of yours has nothing to do with our special scenario. In our scenario it is an actual fetus, conceived in-vitro, and not with the woman’s egg, that invades the woman’s uterus (through the mediation of an evil surgeon). The fetus in our scenario is a foreign invader from the very moment of intrusion because a) it enters the woman’s body without her permission (she’s been kidnapped and impregnated against her will) and b) it is not an offspring of the woman it inhabits. In no sense is it NOT a foreign invader. Ours isn’t a normal rape-pregnancy scenario – it isn’t a case of a rapist’s sperm entering a woman’s body and merging with her own egg to become an innocent non-invading fetus. This is a case of somebody else’s fetus being forced into the woman’s body. Not sure how to make this point more clearly.

Finally, you suggest that a malicious “purpose” is needed on the part of the fetus to justify killing it. Problem is, a “purpose” in an assailant isn’t necessarily a literal requirement for the use of deadly force. Your church is being both literal and figurative in using the word “purpose”: literal in the cases of those whose reason is intact and who are exercising their free will, and figurative in the cases of those whose minds are incapable of morally responsible determination (because their minds are damaged, drugged, diseased, controlled, or imperfectly developed) but whose behavior – or even mere presence – constitutes an act of aggression in and of itself.

The bottom line to all of this is that in the very special, but by no means impossible, scenario I asked us to consider, the Church’s teachings on self-defense contradict its absolute ban on abortion. The Church doesn’t ban the deliberate killing of malice-free adults, or adolescents, or even children – just fetuses. And that includes fetuses that aren’t even ours.

 

[jilly4ski]

Your church does not teach that a person may use deadly force only in “life threatening” situations…] newadvent.org/cathen/13691a.htm

Bodily integrity, as your church defines and values it, …]

You wanted to know what makes the fetus in our scenario so special. …]

Finally, you suggest that a malicious “purpose” is needed on the part of the fetus to justify killing it. Problem is, a “purpose” in an assailant isn’t necessarily a literal requirement for the use of deadly force. …]

…]

1. I was not specifically addressing your hypothetical, because it was just a hypothetical and is not real. The real cases of rape, which is the scenario we are discussing the fetus cannot be considered foreign to the mother. There have been real cases of women being implanted with the wrong embryo, when attempting IVF. (Seems more like an argument agaisnt IVF than an argument for abortion). Again the only difference between that embryo and correct one is DNA. Does that make the fetus (by the time the person gets around to killing it) killable, just because it has DNA you don’t like/didn’t want?
2. And I am not “preoccupied” in the true biological fact, that sperm and egg no longer exist once fertilization takes place, and in its place in a member of the human species, in the developmental stage of Zygote. That is scientific truth, how you want to apply that to your reasoning is up to you.
3. You have not defined bodily integrity, and whether or not a pregnancy violates ones bodily integrity. Rape is obviously an offense against ones bodily integrity, but so is a punch in the face, or even getting bumped into. Only one of those situations calls for force which may escalate into deadly force. It is also a principle that you use no more force than is necessary as to defeat this attackers purpose. If you can shout for help, call the police, or do something else to scare ones attacker you must do that, and not resort to deadly force. So you have not shown that a pregnancy falls in the category of violating bodily integrity to such a level as to use force (even deadly force) as to deter the attackers purpose.
4. Your analogies fail, not because you were equating fetuses with thieves (I understand what analogies are), but because the fundamental differences in the situations. (ie your assumptions are flawed, namely your theory of self defense). Your child bomber is not equivalent because the child bomber obviously is a threat to ones life, thus making self defense, even against an innocent allowable, but if you can convince the child to go sit quietly away from everybody while you call the bomb squad, or scare them off, that is what you must do, and means you cannot kill him). Neither can the analogy to a thief (taking property) nor the rapist (threat to bodily integrity) apply since both of these have malice and ill intent.
5. As far as your ridiculous hypothetical: if you completely understood the doctrine of self defense you need still need an aggressor. You have not shown that the presence of a fetus in the uterus (where fetuses belong) is an aggressor. Is there any other case in which mere presence is being an aggressor? Is there any other instance in which you can say innocent presence can be an unjust aggressor? The child bomber fits as an aggressor even if they are innocent as it threatens ones life. Those not mentally capable are also aggressors, even if they do not know what they are doing or are not culpable. But is the presence of any of these people unjust aggressors, and is it a great enough threat to resort to force, much less deadly force?

For example: Lets say a mentally disturbed person breaks into your house and sits on the floor humming, but is not otherwise dangerous. He is obviously trespassing, and indeed may be in a sense stealing from you, the full use of your home, and was indeed an unjust aggressor while actively breaking into your home. Does he remain an unjust aggressor while sitting on the floor humming? Does this mean you can use deadly force against him? I think most reasonable people would agree it does not. In fact if you shot the man, while he was sitting on the floor, humming, you would be rightly charged with murder in any jurisdiction. So you call the cops, they say they will be right there, but it is a busy day for them, so it takes an hour for them to arrive (I have waited for an officer arrive for a fender bender for almost an hour). Does this passage of time escalate the situation to where deadly force is now allowed? Of course not, you merely wait. This seems like a far closer analogy than anything you have supplied. Thus, deadly force is not required, merely the passage of time, where the man will be removed by the police, without having to kill him.

1. The New Advent article you quoted from to justify yourself, repeatedly uses the term “unjust aggressor” to define when deadly force can be used. Even with your example of the innocent child bomber, it is still an unjust attack. The person doing the attacking, whether or not they are personally innocent, does not have a legitimate force of justice behind them. The article also talks in the section of defense of property, about a man being able to appropriate what is necessary to sustain his life, and one may not use force against him…

 

[Dryden77]

1. I was not specifically addressing your hypothetical…
2. You have not defined bodily integrity…
3. As far as your ridiculous hypothetical: if you completely understood the doctrine of self defense you need still need an aggressor. You have not shown that the presence of a fetus in the uterus (where fetuses belong) is an aggressor. Is there any other case in which mere presence is being an aggressor?

For example: Lets say a mentally disturbed person breaks into your house…

…

1. A hypothetical question doesn’t have to be “real” to be of use –- in fact its remoteness from normal experience is often what makes it valuable. Hypotheticals expose fallacies hidden by the familiarity of normal life, which is why we run across so many “unrealistic” hypotheticals in theology and law. That aside, the hypothetical scenario I offered actually can be considered “real,” in the sense that it could truly happen today. In fact it may have happened already.
2. A violation of bodily integrity includes, but is not limited to, the forcible insertion AND THE SUBSEQUENT PRESENCE of an object –- animal, mineral, human, whatever –- in one’s body. (This could be accomplished by rape, or forced surgery, or forced swallowing, etc.) Both the person who uses force and the object that’s actually placed inside one’s body are aggressors. A violation of bodily integrity needn’t expose the victim to life-threatening physical danger in order to justify the use of deadly force in response.
3. You asked, “Is there any other case in which mere presence is being an aggressor? Is there any other instance in which you can say innocent presence can be an unjust aggressor?” The short answer is Yes; the long answer is Yes But Not In The Way We Mean. Your own hypothetical learning-disabled intruder is a malice-free (innocent) aggressor-presence: innocent by virtue of his disability and an aggressor by reason of entering (and also occupying) my house without my permission. But he’s not a violator of anybody’s bodily integrity – he’s not hanging out inside anybody’s abdomen. He’s a non-violent trespasser, not a thief, not a murderer, not a rapist (nor, again, a bodily violator of any kind at all), and thus not someone we may kill. He doesn’t fall into a killable category. If I tried to get him to leave and he attacked me, we’d have a different scenario. But as you scripted it, the intruder in my house isn’t killable. Pregnancy is unique –- which is why, if we really want to find a parallel to the hypothetical scenario I offered (the scenario of the woman who’s been impregnated against her will with a fetus from another woman), we’re forced to call upon yet another hypothetical. We could imagine, for example, an evil alien shrinking an unwilling man down to a tiny size, placing him in a survival suit, and then beaming him into an unwilling woman’s body. The alien sees to it that the shrunken man cannot be removed without being killed; the alien also promises that if the woman waits nine months the shrunken man will be beamed out safely and restored to his prior condition. In such a case I’d argue that the woman has the right, as a matter of justice, to extract the man by force, especially if the alien makes the man’s presence mimic the effects of a fetus on a woman’s body. At this point we should note, since we’re shooting for realism here despite full realism not being possible, that a fetus isn’t “merely present” in the uterus, like some ghostly electron. A fetus causes dramatic and unwanted physical changes in the woman, some of which are permanent; it interrupts a woman’s daily routine and other personal circumstances enough to potentially sabotage her career and possibly rupture her social and family life (she may be married, etc); it produces protracted physical discomfort; and its emergence from the womb is accompanied by terrible agony (for her). So, yes, by all means the woman would be justified in using deadly force against our shrunken man. Just as she would against a fetus that’s not hers and that’s been surgically implanted in her against her will.
4. Why does it matter, you asked, if the fetus we kill is the offspring of the woman who’s hosting it or if it’s the offspring of some other woman? It doesn’t – not to me at least. Both are killable if they’re present in the woman’s body without her permission. I brought up the case of a woman being forced to host a fetus from a different mother for one reason: to respond to, and hopefully circumvent, the common Catholic argument that a fetus conceived by rape isn’t an intruder because it comes from the mother’s body (from her egg). The fetus in my example did not come from the woman’s body, so by definition it has to be considered an intruder. Which means the standard argument doesn’t apply.

 

[jilly4ski]

1. Why does it matter, you asked, if the fetus we kill is the offspring of the woman who’s hosting it or if it’s the offspring of some other woman? It doesn’t – not to me at least. Both are killable if they’re present in the woman’s body without her permission. I brought up the case of a woman being forced to host a fetus from a different mother for one reason: to respond to, and hopefully circumvent, the common Catholic argument that a fetus conceived by rape isn’t an intruder because it comes from the mother’s body (from her egg). The fetus in my example did not come from the woman’s body, so by definition it has to be considered an intruder. Which means the standard argument doesn’t apply.

And yet, we can’t kill the intruder in our home, who sitting on our our living room floor humming. Though we can generally use (deadly) force if he was actively breaking in or otherwise presenting a threat. But now that he is just sitting down, now what?

He too is disrupting our lives, (just like a fetus) causes discomfort, he is dirty and smelly, and is where he doesn’t belong.

 

[Cricket2]

And yet, we can’t kill the intruder in our home, who sitting on our our living room floor humming. Though we can generally use (deadly) force if he was actively breaking in or otherwise presenting a threat. But now that he is just sitting down, now what?

He too is disrupting our lives, (just like a fetus) causes discomfort, he is dirty and smelly, and is where he doesn’t belong.

Comparing a fetus to an intruder who means us harm, and adding a description of this person as being “dirty and smelly” is beyond insulting. A fetus is an innocent, defenseless human being who is not capable of any effort to harm us of its own will.

An intruder is not innocent, does mean to harm us and can be subject to our self-defense efforts. What a horrible, way to make a comparison to a fetus. Really!

 

[HappyCatholic01]

Comparing a fetus to an intruder who means us harm, and adding a description of this person as being “dirty and smelly” is beyond insulting. A fetus is an innocent, defenseless human being who is not capable of any effort to harm us of its own will.

An intruder is not innocent, does mean to harm us and can be subject to our self-defense efforts. What a horrible, way to make a comparison to a fetus. Really!

Whoa, she is on your side. She is using someone else’s analogy to attack the notion of legitimate abortion because an intruder is unwanted.

 

[Cricket2]

Whoa, she is on your side. She is using someone else’s analogy to attack the notion of legitimate abortion because an intruder is unwanted.

My sincere apologies to all. I failed to realize this and I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

 

[jilly4ski]

My sincere apologies to all. I failed to realize this and I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

No problem, I was hoping it was just a “too quick a reading” thing and not a problem comprehending analogies. The argument has gotten rather long an convoluted.

 

[Dryden77]

And yet, we can’t kill the intruder in our home, who sitting on our our living room floor humming. Though we can generally use (deadly) force if he was actively breaking in or otherwise presenting a threat. But now that he is just sitting down, now what?

He too is disrupting our lives, (just like a fetus) causes discomfort, he is dirty and smelly, and is where he doesn’t belong.

Why is the fetus in my scenario killable and the humming guy in your scenario unkillable? First of all, the humming guy in your scenario actually would be killable if he violently resisted my efforts to dislodge him (as I wrote yesterday), or if he made no willful resistance at all –- or even any active resistance at all, willful or otherwise – but was attached to my living room floor in such a way that in terms of practical measures only death could get rid of him. We can’t kill the humming guy in response to his mere presence (as I wrote yesterday), but we can kill him if his mere presence is combined with a persistent failure on his part to leave. Same thing with a fetus. We probably wouldn’t be justified in killing a fetus if all we had to do was call the cops and have the fetus transferred to some highly advanced incubator. So it’s an entirely false inconsistency you’re charging me with.

More importantly, it has to be noted that in order to draw a parallel between a brain-dead guy on my floor who won’t go home and a fetus in the body of an unwilling surrogate mother, one needs to take complete leave of reality.

Let me point out some of the differences.

1. Your humming guy is utterly harmless, while my hypothetical fetus poses a mortal risk to its host – especially if our unlucky surrogate mother doesn’t have the advantage of checking herself into an obstetrics unit at a modern hospital. Which would be the case for most of the women alive today, incidentally. Your guy wouldn’t even know what to do with a gun; my fetus is a potential killer. That’s a critical difference, and this difference alone makes your analogy unworkable.
2. Your humming guy can’t cause permanent health problems, such as infertility. My fetus certainly can.
3. Your humming guy can’t ruin a woman’s chances of getting married. Not so for my fetus.
4. Your humming guy can’t break up a marriage. My fetus has no problem tearing marriages apart.
5. Your humming guy can’t get someone fired from a position she’d spent years, and thousands of dollars, pursuing. My fetus is a champ at doing just that.

There’s no real-world analogy to the scenario I brought up. It’s a unique case, and it shouldn’t be treated the same way as other pregnancies. To do so is a failure of moral reasoning.

 

[davidv]

Why is the fetus in my scenario killable and the humming guy in your scenario unkillable? First of all, the humming guy in your scenario actually would be killable if he violently resisted my efforts to dislodge him (as I wrote yesterday), or if he made no willful resistance at all –- or even any active resistance at all, willful or otherwise – but was attached to my living room floor in such a way that in terms of practical measures only death could get rid of him. We can’t kill the humming guy in response to his mere presence (as I wrote yesterday), but we can kill him if his mere presence is combined with a persistent failure on his part to leave. Same thing with a fetus. We probably wouldn’t be justified in killing a fetus if all we had to do was call the cops and have the fetus transferred to some highly advanced incubator. So it’s an entirely false inconsistency you’re charging me with.

More importantly, it has to be noted that in order to draw a parallel between a brain-dead guy on my floor who won’t go home and a fetus in the body of an unwilling surrogate mother, one needs to take complete leave of reality.

Let me point out some of the differences.

1. Your humming guy is utterly harmless, while my hypothetical fetus poses a mortal risk to its host – especially if our unlucky surrogate mother doesn’t have the advantage of checking herself into an obstetrics unit at a modern hospital. Which would be the case for most of the women alive today, incidentally. Your guy wouldn’t even know what to do with a gun; my fetus is a potential killer. That’s a critical difference, and this difference alone makes your analogy unworkable.
2. Your humming guy can’t cause permanent health problems, such as infertility. My fetus certainly can.
3. Your humming guy can’t ruin a woman’s chances of getting married. Not so for my fetus.
4. Your humming guy can’t break up a marriage. My fetus has no problem tearing marriages apart.
5. Your humming guy can’t get someone fired from a position she’d spent years, and thousands of dollars, pursuing. My fetus is a champ at doing just that.

There’s no real-world analogy to the scenario I brought up. It’s a unique case, and it shouldn’t be treated the same way as other pregnancies. To do so is a failure of moral reasoning.

A mother is not a host for a developing child in her womb.
dictionary.com:

noun

1. a person who receives or entertains guests at home or elsewhere: the host at a theater party.
2. a master of ceremonies, moderator, or interviewer for a television or radio program.
3. a person, place, company, or the like, that provides services, resources, etc., as for a convention or sporting event: Our city would like to serve as host for the next Winter Olympics.
4. the landlord of an inn.
5. a living animal or plant from which a parasite obtains nutrition.

Therefore your scenario is a not relevant to the OP. It is just an irrational excuse to justify sin. The child is neither an invited guest, nor an intruder, nor a parasite.

 

[Dryden77]

A mother is not a host for a developing child in her womb.
Therefore your scenario is a not relevant to the OP. It is just an irrational excuse to justify sin. The child is neither an invited guest, nor an intruder, nor a parasite.

I’m not sure how closely you’ve been following this argument, so let me clarify a few things:

1. The woman we’ve been talking about is a surrogate mother. Surrogate mothers are commonly known as hosts. See below for examples. In the interest of brevity I’ve limited my examples to four. I could have gone on ad infinitum.

---

The woman who carries the baby is called the surrogate or host. hsfc.org.uk/fertility/surrogacy/

In “host surrogacy”, embryos are created through IVF using the eggs and sperm of both intended parents are transferred to the surrogate mother. telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/8190131/Childless-couples-win-the-right-to-pay-surrogate-mothers.html

The surrogate will act as host mother till the time of birth of the child. She then hands over the child to the couple. ivfclinic.com/infertility-ivf/surrogate-mother-surrogacy-india.html

A gestational surrogate (or gestational carrier) is not genetically related to the child she carries. Gestational surrogacy is also called IVF surrogacy, host surrogacy or full surrogacy. infertility.about.com/od/infertilityglossarypz/g/Surrogate.htm​

1. You wrote: “The child is neither [a] an invited guest, nor ** an intruder, nor [c] a parasite.”

a) Clearly the fetus in this case isn’t an invited guest; that was never in dispute. This fetus was conceived in a test tube and then forcibly implanted in a woman who’d been randomly abducted.

b) I thought we covered this ground already, but to move the argument forward I’ll be happy –- again, only for the sake of argument –- to change “intruder” to “intrusion.” The fetus in my example is by definition an intrusion. (“Intrusion: An inappropriate or unwelcome addition.”) thefreedictionary.com/intrusion

c) No one in our discussion called the fetus a parasite.**

 

[davidv]

{snip}
c) No one in our discussion called the fetus a parasite.

It was strongly implied when it was called an intruder, if not directly, by analogy.

 

[Dryden77]

It was strongly implied when it was called an intruder, if not directly, by analogy.

Not really. Sounds more like an unwarranted inference on your part than a sloppy use of language on mine.