Unusual pro-choice arguement

[jpjd]

To add to my post #19, personally speaking, I enjoyed my pregnancies. I did not find them limiting at all, except perhaps around 8 & 9 months when it was difficult to bend over to tie my sneakers and to find a comfortable sleeping position! I would say, in fact, that if I had to describe any part of parenthood enslaving, it wasn’t the pregnancy, it was the infancy! To have to feed an infant, especially if you exclusively nursed as I did, and change diapers every 3 hours or so around the clock; to be awakened from a sound sleep in the middle of the night because of a crying baby; to deal with a crying baby when you can’t determine a reason for the crying; to have to lug baby paraphenelia around with you every time you go anywhere, and on and on and on…that is more “slavery” than any pregnancy I ever experienced.

 

[DarkNight]

1. Rape is a moot argument. If you are raped, you are given the morning after pill, which should cause no qualms among those contemplating abortion.

The point is not moot.
Both incest & spousal rape occur and in these situations, the morning after pill would not be available since the act would not be reported (at least not in time for the pill to be effective).

This is an interesting hypothetical situation. I was hoping to read a good, logical response. The Catholic faith does not preclude logic.

The pro-life stance is not “owned” by believers, conservatives, anti-feminists or any particular group for that matter. A simple search for pro-life athiests convinced me of that.

I await that logical response.

Go with Love, Go with God

 

[Loboto-Me]

I’m not insensitive to any woman being raped and carrying a bastards child. But to say a woman/mother is a slave to carrying a child debasing both the pregnant woman and the child she’s carrying? Maybe I’m missing something here

Yup, you were missing something. I was using the words previously used… he wanted “slave” I used slave.

As far as changing the scenario, others here have replied much better than I could have.

 

[Luke_K]

Second, everybody here agrees that the fetus is a human being. But going back to my hypothetical: Should the healthy sister be forced by law to keep the sick sister alive for nine months? I would say no. Now how is this different from a Mother not wanting to be forced by law to keep a child alive for nine months?

With the mother, she would be performing a deliberate action to kill a human being, whereas otherwise her body would continue to naturally support the baby until birth. It is murder. With the sister, she would merely be letting her sister die and letting nature take its course.

It reminds me of Batman in Batman Begins: “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you.”

 

[lizaanne]

Unusual pro-choice arguement [sic]

There is nothing unusual about this. It is another attempt to justify murder.

It doesn’t work.

The murder of an innocent can never be justified, regardless of the circumstances - even rape.

The pro-abortion crowd will always try to come up with something else, then something else, then again. They can make up all the crazy hypothetical arguments they want, but at the end of the day, it is a living human being they want to kill.

Nothing changes that.

~Liza

 

[lizaanne]

1. Rape is a moot argument. If you are raped, you are given the morning after pill, which should cause no qualms among those contemplating abortion.

Um - do you even know what the “morning after” pill does? It causes a chemical abortion. Same thing, different tool.

Rape is never a moot argument - if there is a baby there, it’s there. Regardless of how it was conceived.

~Liza

 

[jmcrae]

The sister is forced to live wither sister in the hospital, I believe. I don’t know details. For the purposes of our hypothetical, imagine this:

The sister has a major blood disease. The only way she can survive is if her sister, who’s body is considered to be the only perfect match of the sick sister, lives with her in the Hospital for nine months, giving blood. Let’s assume for this hypothetical that it’s about as inconvenient as pregnancy.

Okay - let’s say it’s as inconvenient as pregnancy.

For the first 3-4 months, there is some minor inconvenience in the mornings. Something is done to the sister that makes her feel light-headed for a few moments. The rest of the day, she can leave the hospital and do whatever she wants to do.

Come to the fifth month, the inconvenience first thing in the morning is gone, but now she has to carry something that weighs about six pounds, under her clothes. She has to buy bigger clothes to fit over this six-pound object. Her freedom of movement is not restricted in any way - she can continue to go about her day, as normal. Once a month, she has to visit her sister’s doctor to see how she is doing.

It’s not really until the eighth month that she has to start taking it easy, lying down more often. She has to cut back her hours at work, and she feels tired a lot. So, let’s say that she is spending about four hours a day at the hospital with her sister, at this point, but the rest of the time, she is going about her day as normal.

At some point during the ninth month, for about a week or so, now she has to spend all day at the hospital with her sister. Although it might not take a whole week; it might only take several hours - it depends on many different factors.

At the end of the week (if it takes that long), the treatment is finished, and now she can choose - does she want her sister to come and live with her to recuperate (which will take about 18-25 years, before her sister can finally move out on her own) or does she want to give her sister over to another care-giver?

 

[Luke_K]

Okay - let’s say it’s as inconvenient as pregnancy.

For the first 3-4 months, there is some minor inconvenience in the mornings. Something is done to the sister that makes her feel light-headed for a few moments. The rest of the day, she can leave the hospital and do whatever she wants to do.

Come to the fifth month, the inconvenience first thing in the morning is gone, but now she has to carry something that weighs about six pounds, under her clothes. She has to buy bigger clothes to fit over this six-pound object. Her freedom of movement is not restricted in any way - she can continue to go about her day, as normal. Once a month, she has to visit her sister’s doctor to see how she is doing.

It’s not really until the eighth month that she has to start taking it easy, lying down more often. She has to cut back her hours at work, and she feels tired a lot. So, let’s say that she is spending about four hours a day at the hospital with her sister, at this point, but the rest of the time, she is going about her day as normal.

At some point during the ninth month, for about a week or so, now she has to spend all day at the hospital with her sister. Although it might not take a whole week; it might only take several hours - it depends on many different factors.

At the end of the week (if it takes that long), the treatment is finished, and now she can choose - does she want her sister to come and live with her to recuperate (which will take about 18-25 years, before her sister can finally move out on her own) or does she want to give her sister over to another care-giver?

This is why arguments by analogy are stupid. Why don’t we just deal with the actual issue, in the actual context?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I find all your thoughts very interesting. Keep in mind that I am extremely pro-life. I do not support this arguement. I’m using Thomas Aquinas’s method of arguement: Strengthen the opponent’s arguement, to make the refutation more “valid” so to speak.

I posted my response to this on the wonderful Catholic blog fallible blogma as “Catholic debating pro-life” (you’ll notice that I quote fallible blgoma a lot…it’s that good!). Here is what I said:

"Have you ever heard of the book My Sister’s Keeper? I have never read it but the pro-choicers described it to me. It is about a girl who’s body is, as they described it to me, “perfectly suited to support the body of her sister”. As in, she had to live with her sister or she’d die. The girl sued that she was being forced to live with her sister and won-rightly so. That is a question of personal morals and sacrifice that you shouldn’t be forced to make. You should have the right to refuse being someone’s slave, more or less, to keep them alive.

So the obvious parallel is that a mother should not be FORCED, under law, to have to carry the child; yes, the child would die, but on the other hand, this arguement says, the mother should not be forced to keep the child alive if she doesn’t want to, right?

After much inner turmoil and questioning of whether or not the pro-lifers were correct, I came up with the appropriate answer:

The situation is similar to the one presented. But there are several key differences. First of all, the Mother chose to have sex. She has to accept the consequences. It would be horribly irresponsible to kill a child for your actions, correct?

But this does not take into account (very rare, BTW) cases of rape. Which is still a fair point. So, I’ll make my own analogy: abortion to infanticide.

A child must live with the mother to stay alive. This is both legally AND morally true. The Mother is forced to sacrifice money, food, and shelter to the child so that said child could stay alive. This is considered just by any reasonable society.

“Ah”, the pro-choicers argue, “But what about adoption!”

Fair enough. Pregnant mothers do not have that option. My counter: What if Mothers with born children did not have that option? As in, what if there was no adoption? You would still consider it murder if the child is abandoned, right? I certainly hope so.

So, if we agree that a born child who is not provided basic requirements of life by a legal guardian is in fact murder (and both moral and legal laws agree to this) how can we, in fact, agree that an unborn, yet still fully human, child that is denied the basic requirements of life by its mother is not murder? Remember, we’re working under the assumption that the child is fully human from conception. If we do that, abortion fails the test of human reason.

BTW, about the debate about when a zygote/fetus is human…there is a debate. This is undeniable. I have seen and read reliable links about when the zygote/fetus is considered human. HOWEVER, by the very fact that the zygote MIGHT be human, then causing the zygote’s death is at minimum manslaughter…which is also illegal. Now matter how you look at it, abortion is a grave evil and must be stopped."

 

[Marc_Anthony]

And here is the response of Matthew Warner, the blogmaster:

"First, there is not really a debate about if a zygote/embryo is “human.” Every credible embryologist’s position on this recognizes that a zygote is “human.” If you have sources that suggest otherwise with supported evidence, I would certainly be interested in reading. But if it’s not human, I’m not sure what else it would be!

As far as the example you give (my sister’s keeper)…it’s an interesting one. And I think you are on the right track with your answer. My thoughts…

First, it’s a good thing that this “pro-choice” argument at least seems to recognize that the unborn baby is another person (one that they can be a slave to). They are just trying to find ways to justify killing this other person. That’s a step in the right direction anyway.

Second, when somebody likens the relationship of mother->child to one of slave->master it is a huge red flag that they are missing the boat somewhere. There is just no way this should compute. But I suppose it’s a legit hypothetical (a very desperate one though).

Third, the fact that a baby can only depend directly on the mother for the first 9 months of life is just part of life. The baby is not forcing the mother like a master forces a slave to take care of him. When they are saying the mother shouldn’t be “forced” to take care of this baby…who is doing the forcing? Nature – not the baby or the government. The rest of us are just saying there should be consequences that help protect the baby and give that human life in the womb the respect and dignity it deserves. As you noted, we do the same for post-birth babies.

I can no more complain that I shouldn’t be “forced” to feel pain when I step on glass. Or “forced” to feel sad when somebody hurts my feelings. Or “forced” to breathe air. Or “forced” to have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. This is just how life works. When new human life is conceived, it just so happens that it occurs inside a mothers womb and needs to live there for 9 months.

Fourth, there is a moral difference between opting out of something and then actively killing them. Abortion is the latter. It is not just “choosing” not to participate. It is intentionally going into a mother’s womb and directly ending the life inside of her. Often stabbing, tearing the baby limb from limb, scraping to death, or burning the baby to death.

Fifth, i think your argument is pretty right on. We have a moral obligation to take care of those that depend on us. We do not have a moral right to directly abandon a baby (born or unborn) with full knowledge that such an action is killing the baby.

If somebody wants to say that means they are “forced” to take care of the baby at that moment, that’s fine. That’s life. Arguments like that try to base their reasoning on false objective truths – false premises. But our society “forces” us not to do things all the time. We have laws we can’t break. Taxes we must pay. People we can’t murder. Nature “forces” us to do things too. Like feel pain. Feel emotion. To keep our brain inside our skull. To not know precisely when we’re going to die. That’s just life.

And ultimately, nobody is really forced to do any of these things. We are free to use our free will to do whatever we like. But there are consequences to those free choices. There can be legal consequences. There are moral consequences. There are eternal consequences.

The real argument here is not that a mother is being “forced” to carry a baby. She isn’t. She can choose to do what she likes. But the consequences are the issue. Nobody can avoid the moral consequences. Those are not determined by us. But the rest of us do have to decide the legal consequences (and also whether or not we want to encourage that behavior, pay for it, promote it etc. like the government and administration currently does). It seems to me that if any of us need such protection that these innocent, defenseless humans deserve to be protected and loved…indeed we have a moral obligation to do so."

Here is the link: fallibleblogma.com/index.php/when-does-science-say-human-life-begins/comment-page-1/#comment-21133

I think Warner pretty much hit the nail on the head.

 

[Spirithound]

I present to you, the “My Sister’s Keeper” arguement:

Have you ever heard of the book My Sister’s Keeper? It is about a girl who’s body is, as they described it to me, “perfectly suited to support the body of her sister”. As in, she had to live with her sister or she’d die. The girl sued that she was being forced to live with her sister and won-rightly so. That is a question of personal morals and sacrifice that you shouldn’t be forced to make. You should have the right to refuse being someone’s slave, more or less, to keep them alive.

So the obvious parallel is that a mother should not be FORCED, under law, to have to carry the child; yes, the child would die, but on the other hand, this arguement says, the mother should not be forced to keep the child alive if she doesn’t want to, right?

There is a natural relationship between a mother and her child, due to how one comes from the other in a natural, predictable way, that demands sacrifice on the mother’s part. There is no such relationship between even siblings.

 

[RosaryFan]

Hi all,

First let me start off by saying that I am crazy pro-life. Like, ultra pro-life. However, I think it’s important that we understand the arguements of the other side. When we understand them, we realize that pro-choicers are not necessarily evil or selfish, simply misguided.

Keep in mind that, after much thought and prayer, I have found a way to refute the arguement I am about to give. But it’s not easy. So, I present to you, the “My Sister’s Keeper” arguement:

Have you ever heard of the book My Sister’s Keeper? I have never read it but the pro-choicers described it to me. It is about a girl who’s body is, as they described it to me, “perfectly suited to support the body of her sister”. As in, she had to live with her sister or she’d die. The girl sued that she was being forced to live with her sister and won-rightly so. That is a question of personal morals and sacrifice that you shouldn’t be forced to make. You should have the right to refuse being someone’s slave, more or less, to keep them alive.

So the obvious parallel is that a mother should not be FORCED, under law, to have to carry the child; yes, the child would die, but on the other hand, this arguement says, the mother should not be forced to keep the child alive if she doesn’t want to, right?

Please don’t get into semantics in the book if you’ve read it, that’s not the point. Just deal with the given hypothetical, please.

I’m interested to see other people’s refutations of this arguement. When a decent amount of people have given their responses to the arguement, I’ll give mine as well as the excellent refutation of this arguement by Matthew Warner of fallible blogma. He says it much better than I do.

Treat this as an intellectual excercise.

Good luck!

First, I agree - they are misguided. Not necessarily evil. They are misguided, however, by evil people. Like the lawmakers and the abortionists who look at the abortion industry as a money-making industry. After all, if abortion were to be outlawed like before 1973, I doubt Planned Parenthood would be able to stay afloat.

I would refute this by saying the girl who was forced to live with her sister did not openly and willfully have intercourse to create her. Therefore, she shouldn’t be forced to live with her to “keep her alive” (I didn’t read the book). A pregnant woman has willfully chosen the very act which created the human being growing within her.

Another point I’d make to argue the case. Moving out of the sister’s home is not killing her. It may be a cause of her death, but she is not committing the act of killing. Now, if she were to slice her up with a giant knife-like tool and then suction her body, piece-by-piece, out of the front door with a vacuum before moving out of the house, THEN it would be “killing”.

 

[Anna2552]

The point is not moot.
Both incest & spousal rape occur and in these situations, the morning after pill would not be available since the act would not be reported (at least not in time for the pill to be effective).

That is true. I amend my statement to “largely moot” to accomodate these scenarios, though such unsubstantiated claims equal less than 1% of abortions.

 

[Anna2552]

Um - do you even know what the “morning after” pill does? It causes a chemical abortion. Same thing, different tool.

Rape is never a moot argument - if there is a baby there, it’s there. Regardless of how it was conceived.

~Liza

I know what it does. A woman who would choose abortion to end a pregnancy would have already done so via the morning after pill. That is why it is “largely moot” as far as argument for abortion.

I must have been unclear - I thought 1,2 and 4 would have indicated that I agree with you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Another point I’d make to argue the case. Moving out of the sister’s home is not killing her. It may be a cause of her death, but she is not committing the act of killing. Now, if she were to slice her up with a giant knife-like tool and then suction her body, piece-by-piece, out of the front door with a vacuum before moving out of the house, THEN it would be “killing”.

I agree with this. I think the story’s analogy fails right from the start.

 

[agbasinger]

The thing about pregnancy is that you don't really DO anything to keep the baby alive and growing. You eat and sleep and go about your business like you normally do. The baby grows "automatically". The difficult part about an unwanted pregnancy is not the "keeping it alive" part. It's the part about knowing there is another human being growing inside you that will be born:

I disagree. A child is actively draining the mother of nutrition forcing the mother to change her life. I think that qualifies as ‘do’.

I do agree that keeping the child alive isn’t difficult because of our modern way of life.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I’m going to go into hypothetical mode here again, although I’ve already answered.

You say that abortion is actively killing a child while in the sister’s keeper arguement it is merely allowing somebody to die. You also point out the brutality of abortion.

My points:

1. What if the abortion is done very early on? (Within the the first month or so.) Then even if the abortion methods were brutal the baby couldn’t feel it anyway, so that’s no issue.
2. So what if the Mother didn’t kill the baby, but merely removed the baby knowing that said baby would die? That would be the same thing the healthy sister was doing…leaving the sick sister knowing she would die, wouldn’t it? What’s the difference?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m going to go into hypothetical mode here again, although I’ve already answered.

You say that abortion is actively killing a child while in the sister’s keeper arguement it is merely allowing somebody to die. You also point out the brutality of abortion.

My points:

1. What if the abortion is done very early on? (Within the the first month or so.) Then even if the abortion methods were brutal the baby couldn’t feel it anyway, so that’s no issue.
2. So what if the Mother didn’t kill the baby, but merely removed the baby knowing that said baby would die? That would be the same thing the healthy sister was doing…leaving the sick sister knowing she would die, wouldn’t it? What’s the difference?

I still don’t think it works.

1. So, strangle someone who is in a coma or, better, anaesthetize them, then shoot them. Same as #1. Murder.
2. Take an infant outside and lay it naked in the snow. Same as #2. Murder.

The reason why the story analogy fails is that the unfeeling sister isn’t actively killing the disabled sister in the sense of shooting or strangling her. In every abortion, there is an active killing. Of course, in the story, the unfeeling sister might not be a criminal under the law, but she’s a monster in a moral sense.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Who said we’re leaving baby naked in the snow…you’re simly removing the baby. Without the Mother’s blood being pumped through baby’s veins before a certain point in the baby’s pregnancy, the baby dies. But nobody needs to actively kill the baby. He or she would die on his or her own. How is this different from what the healthy sister is doing? Because if it’s not different then it’s not illegal, no?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Who said we’re leaving baby naked in the snow…you’re simly removing the baby. Without the Mother’s blood being pumped through baby’s veins before a certain point in the baby’s pregnancy, the baby dies. But nobody needs to actively kill the baby. He or she would die on his or her own. How is this different from what the healthy sister is doing? Because if it’s not different then it’s not illegal, no?

Healthy sister in the story does nothing to actively kill other sister, monster though she is for walking away.

Regarding baby in the snow. House is warm and life-sustaining. Snow is cold and deadly. Baby will die in snow if placed there. Murderer does not merely leave, but removes baby from life-sustaining environment and deliberately puts baby in snow where baby will die and where murderer knows it will die. Murderer gets arrested, charged and convicted of murder. Manslaughter at minimum.

Mother’s body is life-sustaining. Doctor has surgical procedure cutting off baby from life-sustaining environment. Puts baby in environment where baby will inevitably die (if not killed directly in the process of removal; the usual situation) and where doctor knows baby will die and intends it. Doctor does not simply “walk away” like Healthy Sister. Doctor actively kills. But because the Supreme Court claimed it “does not know when human life begins” in 1973, Doctor is charged with nothing, but is paid very handsomely.

From the doctor’s perspective, the closer analogy would be that Healthy Sister doesn’t like taking care of Sick Sister. Doctor shoots Sick Sister to relieve Healthy Sister of the burden of taking care of Sick Sister. Doctor does it for money. Doctor is arrested, charged and convicted.

Even mother cannot simply “walk away” from a baby in utero. One must take affirmative action to kill it. But, of course, the Supremes declared in 1973 that society has to accept that as “not-murder”.

I don’t claim it makes sense, what we have. It doesn’t.