How can you justify being pro-life if you believe in bodily rights?

[mimi05]

I have been raised pro-life, and consider myself to be pro-life, but recently I have had some doubts about it. I was discussing with a pro-choicer and they brought up that regardless of if the fetus is human, no one can force you to use your body to help someone. Example, a mother should not be forced to donate blood to their child, even if the child will die without it.

The gist of what I replied was that pregnancy is different as it is a natural function for women, and should be required, while blood transfusion is not. But I am not sure about the strength of that response anymore.

If someone could explain how a pro-lifer can logically respond to this, I would be grateful.

 

[Annie]

Well, if I have bodily rights, which presumably include not being killed, then so would my unborn child, wouldn’t he/she?

 

[spoonerc]

A parent is required to sacrifice their lives to protect their children. Therefore, a child is not a “choice” but a beautiful gift from God who is entrusting to the parents a new soul, destined to become a saint in the heavenly kingdom. God already knows its name and has carved out its sacred mission. Therefore, when you attack an unborn or newly-born child, you attack God Himself.

 

[fhansen]

I have been raised pro-life, and consider myself to be pro-life, but recently I have had some doubts about it. I was discussing with a pro-choicer and they brought up that regardless of if the fetus is human, no one can force you to use your body to help someone. Example, a mother should not be forced to donate blood to their child, even if the child will die without it.

The gist of what I replied was that pregnancy is different as it is a natural function for women, and should be required, while blood transfusion is not. But I am not sure about the strength of that response anymore.

If someone could explain how a pro-lifer can logically respond to this, I would be grateful.

Should we have the right to use our bodies to take the life of another person? Because that’s what occurs with abortion.

 

[mimi05]

Yeah, but the problem I found with that was you could just do a very early term delivery of the baby, as that would not be actively killing, just letting die, (the same way a parent would let their child die of blood loss). But very early term delivery also seems wrong to me.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

The gist of what I replied was that pregnancy is different as it is a natural function for women, and should be required, while blood transfusion is not.

You were right to say this. The uterus has no function but to care for an unborn child as they develop. Blood isn’t meant to be taken and put in someone else. Being pregnant is ordinary. Donating blood is extraordinary.

 

[fhansen]

Yeah, but the problem I found with that was you could just do a very early term delivery of the baby, as that would not be actively killing, just letting die, (the same way a parent would let their child die of blood loss). But very early term delivery also seems wrong to me.

I guess I don’t get it. You’d be consciously, actively, physically-and unnaturally- manipulating things in order to end human life.

 

[Servant31]

I don’t think this addresses the issue. You could also just starve a chikd by not giving him food… you didn’t take an active step, but in neglect, used a passive method. The result would still be the same.

The problem is though that if life is life, then either method isn’t permissible because it causes destruction of that life. Does that hit your question?

 

[po18guy]

Utter and complete nonsense. Do not listen to it. That is modthink and is not of God. Rather, learn your faith and see that love is the most powerful and enduring force in the universe.

The only “force” in modthink is that you will be forced to comply with that line of thinking. Ask him/her if they were aborted and if not, would they like to be?

 

[Philomenasmum]

I was told to induce my daughter at 26 weeks, as she was sick and there was no chance for survival. In my case, it was essentially an abortion. They wouldn’t even try to help her, so I’d be signing her death warrant. I chose to carry her until she came naturally and she died shortly afterwards, but she was also Baptised. Something that wouldn’t have happened if she was induced (she wouldn’t have survived a natural delivery).
Replacing the word abortion with inducing (when it isn’t safe for the baby), doesn’t change the end means.

Yeah, but the problem I found with that was you could just do a very early term delivery of the baby, as that would not be actively killing, just letting die, (the same way a parent would let their child die of blood loss). But very early term delivery also seems wrong to me.

 

[Rau]

I was discussing with a pro-choicer and they brought up that regardless of if the fetus is human, no one can force you to use your body to help someone.

Let’s say we accept that statement. How do you get from there to a right to kill another human - your own offspring no less? Do your bodily “rights” prevail over the child’s because you are bigger and stronger?

 

[Rau]

Yeah, but the problem I found with that was you could just do a very early term delivery of the baby, as that would not be actively killing, just letting die, (the same way a parent would let their child die of blood loss). But very early term delivery also seems wrong to me.

Clearly you can’t morally do that. Your intention is to bring about the death of the unborn. That ill intention condemns the act as morally evil.

 

[1ke]

regardless of if the fetus is human, no one can force you to use your body to help someone.

This is wrong headed entirely. No, not “regardless”. The child is a person and has an inalienable right to life.

I recommend Randy Alcorn’s book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Expanded and Updated Edition.

Example, a mother should not be forced to donate blood to their child, even if the child will die without it.

Not an equivalent example in any way. In this example withholding life saving treatment, while morally dubious, doesn’t cause the death of the child.

We cannot KILL the child, which abortion does.

 

[mimi05]

Starving a child is clearly wrong, but if you can never do active or passive actions that kill your child, that would also mean parents have to donate blood to their child. So I think there are some exceptions that can be made for the passive methods, if the use of the parent’s body is directly involved.

 

[mimi05]

How do you get from there to a right to kill another human - your own offspring no less?

I think my example explains that, but if I am wrong, please continue. (There is the difference between kill and let die, which I am currently talking about with some other lovely people. You are welcome to join)

Your intention is to bring about the death of the unborn. That ill intention condemns the act as morally evil.

Well I agree that no one should ever have the intent to kill, especially their own child; but it is very hard to tell intentions. It is entirely possible that in the blood transfusion example, the parent didn’t donate blood because they wanted the child to die. But how could you prove that?

 

[Rau]

I think my example explains that, but if I am wrong, please continue

No, I don’t think so. Sorry, but I’m doubting your sincerity now.

Well I agree that no one should ever have the intent to kill, especially their own child; but it is very hard to tell intentions.

It is only necessary to know your own intentions.

 

[Lea101]

child, that would also mean parents have to donate blood to their child. So I think there are some exceptions that can be made for the passive methods, if the use of the parent’s body is directly involved

Donating blood is not an ordinary need of a child, it’s for sick children. Feeding your children is a natural and legal responsibility of a parent.

Letting your child die because you don’t want to give your blood is cold hearted and at the very least, strange, but not the same as starving your child or “passively killing them” or directly killing them unless your intention was for the child to die. God will deal with you on that.

 

[Servant31]

I agree with Lea… it is a different point. I’m not sure if not giving blood to a child could constitute a sin or not.

However that isn’t a normative situation. That’s not what one might call standard expected care. Food and water is definitely what one would call standard care of a child. If you decided not to feed your children just for personal reasons (not out of inability), most would clearly see that as abuse. The difference is that some currently (in the US and many places) don’t view an unborn child as human. That’s where we emphatically disagree.

 

[FiveLinden]

The argument made to the OP is a strong one, or at least I think so because I believe it.

The pro-life argument is based on the idea that a fetus, or earlier form of human life, 1) has rights and 2) has the same rights as a born human.

Each of these is open to challenge. But even if they are accepted, the fact remains that the right being asserted: to live in a dependent relationship on/in the body of another is not a right we accord to born human beings.

It is a right asserted by pro-lifers in addition to usual human rights.

The Catholic view, as I understand it as a non-believer, is that a fetus has is in the uterus ‘naturally’ in the sense that it is ‘intended’ by the divine order of nature that the fetus be there and grow.

This is not at all obvious if you are not a Catholic. (If you think it is obvious, you need to ask why so many people don’t accept this).

And even if something ‘unnatural’ is happening such as the development a a child who cannot survive, the Catholic position is that the child cannot be removed (because it is in its ‘natural’ position) or killed (because to do so is taking an innocent life) and the end can never justify the means.

This is also not at all obvious to people who are not Catholics.

 

[Montrose]

I think my example explains that, but if I am wrong, please continue. (There is the difference between kill and let die, which I am currently talking about with some other lovely people. You are welcome to join)

Deliberately letting a person die IS killing!