Abortion Questions From Pro-Choice Philosopher David Boonin

[CrystalMayner66]

I have been hearing for years that David Boonin is one of the best pro-choice philosophers around. Feeling strong support for the pro-life position myself, I decided to read his book and give it my consideration. I would have to agree with his reputation, and I was left with a deep appreciation for the complexity of the abortion issue. His book is titled “A Defense of Abortion” and this YouTube clip sheds life on his strongest premise: youtu.be/6RobCjM0ZLA?t=25m33s

Below I’ve listed, what are in my opinion, some of the best questions Boonin asks. He presents the pro-choice answers in his book/YouTube talk and now I am searching out the best pro-life answers. I wanted to present these questions to you to hear your (name removed by moderator)ut. Thank you for your responses!*

I. Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?

II. Is general consent to a pregnancy consent to undergo a pregnancy which turns out to be unexpectedly abnormal, dangerous or painful?

III. Is consent to pregnancy irreversible or ongoing?

IIII. In what situations does consent become overruled by self-defense?

V. When pregnancy is not consented to (rape, ignorance, impaired judgement, coercion, etc.), acknowledging the right to live is not the same thing as the right to be kept alive by another person, does a woman have the right to unplug the child from her body without causing him any intentional harm?

VI. What is the method for establishing the value of a human being without a heartbeat or brain activity on a secular, political level?

VII. In America, parents have the luxury of adoption. Do the ethics change when mothers are forced to literally abandon their careers, passions and dreams after giving birth?

VIII. How does the concept of bodily autonomy apply after birth? Does a child ever have the right to use his mother’s body then? For example, would a woman have the right to refuse to breastfeed her child if there were no breast milk alternatives available?*

 

[PJM]

I have been hearing for years that David Boonin is one of the best pro-choice philosophers around. Feeling strong support for the pro-life position myself, I decided to read his book and give it my consideration. I would have to agree with his reputation, and I was left with a deep appreciation for the complexity of the abortion issue. His book is titled “A Defense of Abortion” and this YouTube clip sheds life on his strongest premise: youtu.be/6RobCjM0ZLA?t=25m33s

Below I’ve listed, what are in my opinion, some of the best questions Boonin asks. He presents the pro-choice answers in his book/YouTube talk and now I am searching out the best pro-life answers. I wanted to present these questions to you to hear your (name removed by moderator)ut. Thank you for your responses!*

I. Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?*

THANK YOU! Reading just to this point I feel compelled * to at least attempt to share my thoughts.

“YES” or at least it logically ought to be. BUT given the contraceptive mentality we NOW live in, I suspect the answer is a resounding NO “It can’t /won’t happen to ME”}

II. Is general consent to a pregnancy consent to undergo a pregnancy which turns out to be unexpectedly abnormal, dangerous or painful?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I. Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?

Of course NOT. This would be just as nonsensical as saying: “getting into a car is a consent to having an accident”. For most people having sex is primarily about pleasure. For them pregnancy is an unwanted side-affect. That is especially obvious when they protect against pregnancy - like wearing a condom or using the pill. The analogy would be wearing a seat belt. And of course, if one suffers an accident, then the rational behavior is to do everything to get rid of the results of the accident. Only an idiot would say: “well I had this accident, so I will have live with the consequences - even though I could get rid of those consequences”.

 

[CrystalMayner66]

Of course NOT. This would be just as nonsensical as saying: “getting into a car is a consent to having an accident”.

I love analogies, thank you for sharing yours!

Here is another one for you to consider: A boy plays baseball and breaks his neighbor’s window. He consented to playing baseball, did he consent to breaking the window? I would argue that while the boy didn’t consent to breaking the window, he is responsible for repairing the damage. I would hypothesize that we are able to consent to actions, rather than consequences. Even if the boy took precautions to prevent the window from breaking, he would still be responsible if the window actually broke. What do you think?

And do you think pregnancy is closer to my analogy or to yours? Using your car crash analogy, would you not be responsible for repairing the damage you caused in a crash none-the-less? And though you would want to “get rid” of the results of the accident, as you say, in terms of shattered glass and broken car parts, surely you would not find it ethical to “get rid” of any living human beings found within the car wreckage? “Getting rid” of a pregnancy before viability involves taking the life of an unborn child, directly or indirectly, creating ethical dilemmas.

 

[friardchips]

I. Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?

Is life without responsibility?

II. Is general consent to a pregnancy consent to undergo a pregnancy which turns out to be unexpectedly abnormal, dangerous or painful?

Do parents look forward to their babies crying?

III. Is consent to pregnancy irreversible or ongoing?

Depends whether consent became reality.

IIII. In what situations does consent become overruled by self-defense?

Defense of the most vulnerable would be on behalf of those whose voice cannot yet be heard

V. When pregnancy is not consented to (rape, ignorance, impaired judgement, coercion, etc.), acknowledging the right to live is not the same thing as the right to be kept alive by another person, does a woman have the right to unplug the child from her body without causing him any intentional harm?

The means through which pregnancy happens is disconnected relationally from the new life itself.

VI. What is the method for establishing the value of a human being without a heartbeat or brain activity on a secular, political level?

From embryonic stage, value comes from within; however, it takes value to see value.

VII. In America, parents have the luxury of adoption. Do the ethics change when mothers are forced to literally abandon their careers, passions and dreams after giving birth?

No, ethics are born at such a time.

VIII. How does the concept of bodily autonomy apply after birth? Does a child ever have the right to use his mother’s body then? For example, would a woman have the right to refuse to breastfeed her child if there were no breast milk alternatives available?

It is natural right of a baby to be fed by its mother and the natural responsibility of the mother to feed the baby. Any other understanding is inhuman.

 

[Pat_Payne]

Of course NOT. This would be just as nonsensical as saying: “getting into a car is a consent to having an accident”. For most people having sex is primarily about pleasure. For them pregnancy is an unwanted side-affect. That is especially obvious when they protect against pregnancy - like wearing a condom or using the pill. The analogy would be wearing a seat belt. And of course, if one suffers an accident, then the rational behavior is to do everything to get rid of the results of the accident. Only an idiot would say: “well I had this accident, so I will have live with the consequences - even though I could get rid of those consequences”.

I’m sorry, but that analogy really is not apt. The whole POINT of sex, regardless of the intent of the two involved or the scientific “advances” that have spawned widespread contraception, is human reproduction. A baby, simply put, is the biologically-intended result of the act, not an unforeseen and unpleasant consequence. It’s how the body is designed to function. Unless you’re in a demolition derby, an automobile accident is the result of a malfunction in the car, adverse environmental conditions, sheer bad luck, or reckless or careless behavior on the part of you or another driver in your vicinity – the intended result of getting in your car is going from point A to point B without incident.

 

[Lucretius]

Is consent to sex consent to pregnancy?

When you have consenting sex, you are responsible, knowingly so, for the pregnancy, whether or not you wanted to become pregnant. This is like how a drunk driver might not have wanted to get into an accident, but nevertheless is responsible for it.

Furthermore, ultimately, the desire for sex is a desire for procreation. As St. Thomas says, just as the hunger is for the sake of substaining the individual’s body, lust is for the sake of substaining the human race. To make this as discisive as possible, sexual love is essentially a desire to have children with the beloved.

When pregnancy is not consented to (rape, ignorance, impaired judgement, coercion, etc.), acknowledging the right to live is not the same thing as the right to be kept alive by another person, does a woman have the right to unplug the child from her body without causing him any intentional harm?

I’m not sure there is really such a thing as abortions, in cases of rape, are not intending harm.

What is the method for establishing the value of a human being without a heartbeat or brain activity on a secular, political level?

If I recall correctly, human rights, or natural rights, are called such because they are rooted in one’s nature, and not on how well one expresses his nature.

There is a qualitative difference between a rock, tree, or cat and a fetus, mentally disabled, and normal human adult, as the latter are persons while the former are not. Sure, there is a quantitative different between a fetus, disabled, and adult, but that’s only the difference between having no money in a bank account, having some, and having a lot, which is very, very different from not having a bank account at all (there is a difference between zero, and nothing).

So, if we argue that one has the right to life due to his being a human being/ a person, then a zygote has a right to life.

In America, parents have the luxury of adoption. Do the ethics change when mothers are forced to literally abandon their careers, passions and dreams after giving birth?

Being a mother is usually a greater life than being, say, being a gear in the capitalist’s machine. Chesterton very persuasively shows the value of this kind of life throughout his works, but especially in his book What is Wrong with the World, which can be found here (the first is the text, the second audio):

gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/whats_wrong.html

forum.librivox.org/viewtopic.php?p=175154

That said, I’d don’t think that practically a woman has to give up the fulfillment of the desires in her soul even if she has to give up how she might bring them about if she wasn’t yet a mother. We often find that happiness is better than what we expected.

How does the concept of bodily autonomy apply after birth? Does a child ever have the right to use his mother’s body then? For example, would a woman have the right to refuse to breastfeed her child if there were no breast milk alternatives available?

Depending on the circumstances, I think that the child has right to such.

I think the controversy with abortion is caused in part because we want to apply principles abstracted from relationships between two mature adults to it, but the relationship between a mother and child isn’t really like them: what occurs between mother and child is unique from other relationships, which is why justice within this relationship doesn’t often parallel justice within other human relationships. As Catholics, we see the uniqueness of mother and son quite clearly, because it is the reason behind why the Blessed Mother is venerated in a unique way that no other saints, even the highest of the angelic order, are.

And so, like many other issues, the answer is always more veneration of the Blessed Mother, the paradigm of motherhood

Christi pax.

 

[Lucretius]

Of course NOT. This would be just as nonsensical as saying: “getting into a car is a consent to having an accident”.

But merely driving a car doesn’t tend towards accidents. Sex, on the other hand, does tend towards pregnancies. A better analogue, I think, would be driving a car drunk, which does have a tendency towards accidents. Even if we dislike them, many of our actions inherently tend towards certain consequences, ones that we are often aware of.

You might still say that these consequences were not consented to in the sense of wanted or desired, but no one would deny that we are responsible, including morally responsible, for them.

And of course, if one suffers an accident, then the rational behavior is to do everything to get rid of the results of the accident.

This analogy is not really persuasive, because the “accident” isn’t an injury, which most agree is not a good thing, but rather a human being, which I think you recognize is a very good thing

Christi pax.

 

[CrystalMayner66]

I’m not sure there is really such a thing as abortions, in cases of rape, are not intending harm.

Well said Lucretius!

When I speak of abortions which do not intend the harm of the child, I speak of procedures in which a child is delivered before viability, but not attacked (dismembered, burned, poisoned, etc.) in any form. The child’s death is a foreseen but unintended consequence of the delivery. I am not saying such procedures are necessarily moral, but I do think they differ ethically from abortions in which the child is intentionally brutalized and killed.

 

[Lucretius]

When I speak of abortions which do not intend the harm of the child, I speak of procedures in which a child is delivered before viability, but not attacked (dismembered, burned, poisoned, etc.) in any form. The child’s death is a foreseen but unintended consequence of the delivery. I am not saying such procedures are necessarily moral, but I do think they differ ethically from abortions in which the child is intentionally brutalized and killed.

I agree that they are a different situation. However, I don’t think that merely desiring the procedure makes it just: adnormal circumstances like a threat to the life of the mother might justify it though.

Christi pax.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I love analogies, thank you for sharing yours!

You are most welcome.

Here is another one for you to consider: A boy plays baseball and breaks his neighbor’s window. He consented to playing baseball, did he consent to breaking the window? I would argue that while the boy didn’t consent to breaking the window, he is responsible for repairing the damage.

No problem. The aim of the “game” in the case of an accident, is to restore the original condition as much as possible. The question was: “does the consent to sex include the consent to pregnancy?” The answer is NO. One might say that the consent to sex includes the consent to the possibility to pregnancy - but even that not absolute. It depends on the actual process of sex - which cannot be reduced to vaginal intercourse. Some forms of sex preclude the possibility of pregnancy. But his has nothing to do with abortions.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I’m sorry, but that analogy really is not apt. The whole POINT of sex, regardless of the intent of the two involved or the scientific “advances” that have spawned widespread contraception, is human reproduction.

That is ONE of points for sex, and not even the most important one. Approximately 95% of all the sexual encounters is aimed only at pleasure and/or getting the bond stronger between the partners. In these instances the pregnancy is simply an unwanted result, and the people usually take precautions against the conception. So they most emphatically do NOT consent to the pregnancy.

Of course I would also suggest to use the time-honored methods of having sex, which assure that no unwanted pregnancies occur.

A baby, simply put, is the biologically-intended result of the act, not an unforeseen and unpleasant consequence.

But we are not just biological machines. We can choose to separate the pleasure from the conception, and most of use do exactly that.

Unless you’re in a demolition derby, an automobile accident is the result of a malfunction in the car, adverse environmental conditions, sheer bad luck, or reckless or careless behavior on the part of you or another driver in your vicinity – the intended result of getting in your car is going from point A to point B without incident.

Not necessarily. It could be just a nice drive in the park, without an aim or destination. Or it can be a NASCAR derby, where the aim is to drive as fast as possible.

I recall the obituary of a race car driver: “Both his life and death were caused by a rubber failure”.

 

[Thom18]

Of course NOT. This would be just as nonsensical as saying: “getting into a car is a consent to having an accident”. For most people having sex is primarily about pleasure. For them pregnancy is an unwanted side-affect. That is especially obvious when they protect against pregnancy - like wearing a condom or using the pill. The analogy would be wearing a seat belt. And of course, if one suffers an accident, then the rational behavior is to do everything to get rid of the results of the accident. Only an idiot would say: “well I had this accident, so I will have live with the consequences - even though I could get rid of those consequences”.

Well, you don’t want to get into an accident, but when you get in your car, you run a higher risk than if you would just stay home. One of the ways to avoid the risk is not to get in a car. Another is to obey the rules of the road and hope others do the same. Of course, you can be the victim of a car accident in your own home (which happened to a family a few months ago). I guess this would be akin to rape: you didn’t get into a car, so you had no reason to suspect you would be a victim of a car accident, but you’re injured nonetheless.

But it doesn’t matter what sex means to people. Its purpose is to produce children. To advance the species. The pleasure people (and animals) feel during sex can be seen as a reward and an incentive to do the action again (as the sensation of being hungry is an incentive to eat). Considering pregnancy an unintended consequence of sex is like considering seeing a predator an unintended consequence of having vision. That sort of thing is exactly why you have it.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

But it doesn’t matter what sex means to people.

Nonsense. That is exactly what matters. There are many activities which have multiple outcomes. There is nothing problematic about prioritizing and considering some of the outcomes preferred, and others declared to be unwanted.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Nonsense. That is exactly what matters. There are many activities which have multiple outcomes. There is nothing problematic about prioritizing and considering some of the outcomes preferred, and others declared to be unwanted.

I have never heard a pro-choice philosopher answer the question that none of them wants to hear.

Would anyone in the womb want to be aborted?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

How much more prioritized can you get?

 

[Thom18]

Nonsense. That is exactly what matters. There are many activities which have multiple outcomes. There is nothing problematic about prioritizing and considering some of the outcomes preferred, and others declared to be unwanted.

I beg to differ. Simply from a biological standpoint, the entire point of sex is reproduction. Or, rather, reproduction is the intended goal of sex. As I said, the pleasure you get from it is a “reward”. It’s not an end in itself.

 

[Lucretius]

Nonsense. That is exactly what matters. There are many activities which have multiple outcomes. There is nothing problematic about prioritizing and considering some of the outcomes preferred, and others declared to be unwanted.

There can be a problem when we what prioritize and prefer is not good though.

People who merely act for pleasure are unwise, for our passions are often disordered, and so lead to unhappiness. Wanting to live in Paradise, we exile themselves from it.

Happy is he who desires and takes pleasure in good and is repulsed and pained by evil.

Christi pax.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I beg to differ. Simply from a biological standpoint, the entire point of sex is reproduction. As I said, the pleasure you get from it is a “reward”. It’s not an end in itself.

I don’t disagree, but I have to point out that your POV is extremely limited.

For most animals sex only happens in the time of the estrus. They cannot perform sex in other times of their life. But that is NOT the case for the higher apes, and humans are part of that group. We are not restricted to have sex only during the period when sex leads to procreation. We can have sex any time we feel like it. And we can do it for recreational purposes, or simply developing a bond between the partners. We are not “chained” to the procreative cycle.

All the higher apes do exactly the same. The bonobos live the life according to the slogan of the 60’s: “Make LOVE not WAR”. If they are frustrated, they don’t fight, they have sex. How much more civilized to have sex and not war! We should learn from them. So you wear “blinders” if you restrict your point of view to the “biological standpoint”.

---

Happy is he who desires and takes pleasure in good and is repulsed and pained by evil.

What is “evil” about love, even if it is not aimed to procreation?

 

[Thom18]

I don’t disagree, but I have to point out that your POV is extremely limited.

For most animals sex only happens in the time of the estrus. They cannot perform sex in other times of their life. But that is NOT the case for the higher apes, and humans are part of that group. We are not restricted to have sex only during the period when sex leads to procreation. We can have sex any time we feel like it. And we can do it for recreational purposes, or simply developing a bond between the partners. We are not “chained” to the procreative cycle.

All the higher apes do exactly the same. The bonobos live the life according to the slogan of the 60’s: “Make LOVE not WAR”. If they are frustrated, they don’t fight, they have sex. How much more civilized to have sex and not war! We should learn from them. So you wear “blinders” if you restrict your point of view to the “biological standpoint”.

Can we have sex whenever we desire? Yes. Should we? That’s up for debate. Just because we have the ability to do something doesn’t mean we should. I have the ability to act like an animal and kill another member of my species over a disagreement rather than talk to them about it or take it to court. Should I “learn from them” in this case? Far be it from me to follow their example in this case.

Now, I am not aware of any other creatures on this planet that perform abortions. They may kill pregnant members of their (or another) species (as humans sometimes do) or kill newborns (again, as humans sometimes do), but it doesn’t seem to me that they do it so they can have sex any time they want without “consequence” (pregnancy). They have sex, have offspring, have sex again, and the cycle continues. Maybe they pursue the pleasure, but they don’t try to separate it from the purpose of sex.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

I beg to differ. Simply from a biological standpoint, the entire point of sex is reproduction. Or, rather, reproduction is the intended goal of sex. As I said, the pleasure you get from it is a “reward”. It’s not an end in itself.

I am not taking the pro-choice position, but this statement bothers me. I thought that Rome now recognized the unitive purpose in sex (within marriage) as equal in weight to the reproductive purpose. Am I wrong?