A Critique of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s A Defense of Abortion, Part III
Section 4. Is abortion unjust killing?
Thomson begins this section by considering that “in the most ordinary sort of case, to deprive someone of what he has a right to is to treat him unjustly.” She illustrates this with the following analogy: “Suppose a boy and his small brother are jointly given a box of chocolates for Christmas. If the older boy takes the box and refuses to give his brother any of the chocolates, he is unjust to him, for the brother has been given a right to half of them. But suppose that, having learned that otherwise it means nine years in bed with that violinist, you unplug yourself from him. You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys, and no one else can have given him any such right.” I really think that Thomson is abusing the analogy by extending it to a long period of time. What we must keep in mind is that pregnancy is intrinsically ordered toward procreation. It was never meant to last a long period of time because one of the most basic of human drives is procreation, to continue the species. So it seems that whether or not you’d have to remain plugged into the violinist an extended period of time is really irrelevant to whether or not it is just to forbid a woman from having her offspring killed. Additionally, we aren’t given any information as to the violinist. Would he want to remain in such a state plugged in for nine years? What if the violinist is seventy years old and not likely to survive all that time anyway? It seems that there are even factors affecting the violinist that should be considered if you are going to decide whether or not to remain plugged in.
Thomson here amends her earlier assessment of a right to life, that it’s not just the right not to be killed, but the right not to be killed unjustly. She’s getting closer, at least. But now she claims that it runs the risk of circularity in its definition (which it does not). It seems that from start to finish in her essay, Thomson is not being as fair to pro-life advocates as she claims she is being. It is wrong to kill any human being unjustly. All we are saying is that since the unborn are human beings, if a strong moral justification is needed to kill a human being outside the womb, the same strong moral justification is needed to kill someone inside the womb. There is nothing circular about this argument. Granted, Thomson is arguing for a “right” to abortion based on a similar justification for letting someone die outside the womb; my complaint here is that she’s not really being as fair to pro-life people as she thinks she is. She turns to a consideration regarding the proposition that if the unborn are persons, is abortion, then, an unjust killing?
Thomson now suggests that no woman actually gives an unborn child a right to use her body, stating, “It is not as if there are unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in.” This is how she tries to avoid the responsibility objection in cases other than rape. It doesn’t work, though, because by engaging in sexual intercourse, an act intrinsically ordered toward procreation, she tacitly gives her consent to the preborn child’s presence in the womb. Thomson anticipates this objection, stating that if this were the case, then abortion would be “more like the boys taking away the chocolates, and less like your unplugging yourself from the violinist — doing so would be depriving it of what it does have a right to, and thus would be doing it an injustice.”
Needless to say, her responses to this objection are incredibly weak. First, she asks that if she is responsible for bringing it into existence, then why does she have the right to kill it, even to save her own life? This seems powerful at first, but we must keep in mind that simply bringing an entity into existence does not mean that you don’t have the right to protect yourself from it. Children have been known to kill their parents. If a child turns on his parents, even as an “innocent aggressor,” they have a right to protect themselves.
Her second point is simply that it’s new. She claims that pro-life people have been so concerned about the independence of the fetus that they tend to overlook the possibility that the parents’ responsibility may give the fetus a claim to her body which other independent people may not have, such as an ailing violinist who is a stranger to her. Her response to this is simply that it would leave out children conceived in rape, that aborting them is not depriving them of anything they have a right to. But that’s not an objection, it’s simply the logical conclusion of the responsibility objection. I believe that it should be illegal to abort children conceived in rape (see my linked article for why). Those who do not share my convictions believe that abortions, while still immoral, should not be legally prohibited in the case of rape exactly for this reason — and it would justify only about 1-2% of abortions. So Thomson’s objection here is really not an objection at all.
Thomson presents two further thought experiments to explain her point, to try and show that the responsibility objection does not go as far as pro-life people believe it does.
The burglar
“If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, ‘Ah, now he can stay, she’s given him a right to the use of her house — for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.’ It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars. It remains equally absurd if we imagine it is not a burglar who climbs in, but an innocent person who blunders or falls in.”
Thomson equates pregnancy with burglary. In The Ethics of Abortion (Routledge, New York, NY, 2011, p. 162), Christopher Kaczor responds, “…the woman’s action of leaving the door unlocked does not cause the burglar to be in the house — opening the door only removes an obstacle. On the other hand, the man and the woman cause the baby to be where it is, even if they tried to prevent it (just as a drunk driver causes deaths though she may have tried to prevent it, say by drinking coffee to stay alert).”
In his book, The Case for Life (Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, 2009, p. 192), Scott Klusendorf, when addressing a similar argument made by Eileen McDonagh (that the fetus is like a mugger), responds in this way: “…the analogy is not at all parallel to a pregnant woman and her child. The fetus, even if unwanted, cannot be responsible for its own existence…As Frederica Mathewes-Green points out, there can be no ‘mugger’ until two ‘joggers’ combine genetic material to create him. On what grounds, then, can any parent who willingly engaged in a sexual act that leads naturally to the creation of a dependent child deny responsibility for him?”
Kaczor adds two more disanalogies between pregnancy and the burglar scenario (pp. 164-165). First, the burglar knowingly and willingly breaks the law by entering your house uninvited and taking your items, so he forfeits some of the rights enjoyed by an innocent person. Even if someone wanders into your house (say a small child or an elderly woman with dementia), you do not have the right to kill that person if that’s the only way you can make them leave.
Finally, the act of leaving doors and windows open, unbarred, etc., does not in itself lead to burglars entering homes in the same way that the act of sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy. He says, “suppose that leaving doors unlocked often led to young children or elderly neighbors wandering innocent into your house. Suppose we spoke of leaving doors ajar as the “neighbor-inviting act,” just as we speak of sexual intercourse as the generative act or reproductive act. Suppose further that you caused the child or elderly neighbor to be in your house, say by grabbing a child or an octogenarian who looked very much like your own niece or grandma off the street and dragging the person into your house. Even if you couldn’t find another way of getting herself out of your house as quickly as you’d like, you would hardly be justified in killing her, because she is in your house only because of your own actions.”
In short, the burglar analogy does not combat the responsibility objection; it only reinforces it.
People-seeds
For her next analogy, Thomson writes the following: “Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets and upholstery. You don’t want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not — despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won’t do — for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.”
Now Thomson just gets silly. Aside from the fact that the objections to the burglar scenario work here, too (you are not responsible for the people-seeds drifting in, you were merely removing an obstacle to their implanting in your house, and that opening doors and windows is not an act intrinsically ordered toward bringing people-seeds into your house), John T. Wilcox, in his essay Nature as Demonic in Thomson’s Defense of Abortion (found in The Ethics of Abortion: Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice, ed. Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2001, pp. 264-265), highlights the difficulty of using science fiction scenarios to test our actual world intuitions: “What would such a world really be like? If people-seeds are like pollen, would putting up screens help at all? Would not you, the house resident, be giving off seeds yourself, and so trapping your own pollen-seeds in your house? Or rather: since pollen is not the right metaphor, after all: would you not have to keep people who gave off pollen out of your house, because their pollen might fertilize your flowers, and then you would give off seeds (like dandelion seeds, say, not like pollen) which might be trapped in your house? And you would like your fertilized seed to be cared for by someone else rather than yourself? Or what? We really are not told enough to know what such a world would be like, and hence what kinds of obligations for their seed-children we might think parents would have…This sort of problem is found in almost all science fiction arguments. Our ethical intuitions are shaped by this world and would be clumsy in a real other world; but when we are not really transported to another world, but only asked to imagine a little bit of another one, our intuitions fail us entirely.”
Pro-life philosopher Frank Beckwith talks about this “possible world” (I really don’t think there is a possible world in which humans reproduce by “people-seeds,” but he’s probably just being generous to the scenario). He continues the point I mentioned in the first part of this series, that Thomson really is not granting the pro-life position regarding human personhood. He writes: “…in the seed-sowing world, an essential property of a sowed seed is the generation of a mature version of itself as a plant-person. Consequently, Thomson’s seed-drifting world seem plausible to her because she rejects a philosophy of the human person that is embraced by virtually all pro-lifers: our sexual powers are ordered toward the generation of children whose progenitors are required to care for them. What Thomson is granting, then, is a view of personhood consistent with the pro-life position only insofar as it is aligned with a minimalist understanding of autonomy and choice. That view isolates the individual from other persons — generationally, contemporaneously, and institutionally — except as those relationships arise from the individual’s explicit choice. But that is not the pro-life view of personhood.”
So the burglar and people-seed analogies fail to justify the act of abortion. She continually mentions rape, but as I have written previously, even if abortion is justified in that case, that would only justify it in the case of rape. Justifying abortion in the case of rape would not justify abortion-on-demand, a fact that Thomson seems all too eager to ignore.
One thing I don't get is why all the philosophical mumbo jumbo?
If Roe v Wade were overturned each state has trigger laws, some would outlaw abortion while others would protect it.
Do you plan to engage a maturity registry where each women found pregnant she would have to visit a doctor once a month to prove the fetus is still alive?
Do you wish law enforcement to monitor all pregnant women?
If a pregnant woman left a prolife state to a prochoice state would you have her arrested when she returned? The same if she left the country
Will you have review of all doctors who perform abortions for medical reasons?
If there is probable cause will you place pregnant women in prisons for 9 months until she gives birth, and if she is not able to care for child would you forcible remove the child and place it in some adoption system?
All I here from pro life is "save the baby" "save the baby" but ask "how to you plan to implement a abortion prohibition, all you get is silence.
In addition we have had Roe v. Wade for 40 years do you really think it will be that easy to repeal?
In addition, addition: There is growing movement of women having children out wedlock and women not having children at all, do you think some women at least reject child bearing based on women's rights of privacy are being invaded for simply party politics?
Syner,
The thing is that abortion is largely a philosophical question. In fact, murder is a philosophical question. Why is it wrong to kill an adult human being? Science can't tell you that. It's a philosophical concern as to why it's wrong to kill another human being. I just suggest we apply that standard consistently to the unborn. Thomson's A Defense of Abortion is a philosophical article defending abortion, so it requires a philosophical answer as to why her reasoning fails.
Regarding your questions about law enforcement checking up on pregnant women, it's just nothing more than scare tactics. The reality is that making abortion illegal will not change anything regarding a pregnant woman's privacy. Police must have reasonable cause before they accuse someone of a crime or investigate them. If there's no reasonable cause to suspect that a pregnant woman's miscarriage was intentional, then she won't be investigated. That's how the state of law enforcement works now.
Also, if a woman leaves the state to perform an illegal activity where it is legal, the law has no grounds on arresting her for it (just like, due to our ex post facto laws, if abortion were made illegal, no women who had abortions while it was legal would be tried for their abortions).
So needless to say, most of your questions are not grounded in reality. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just being honest.
There's no need for silence on your question about abortion prohibition. I would assume it will revert back to how it was before abortion was legalized across the country with Roe v. Wade. If a woman is discovered to have had an abortion, she would be granted immunity if she gives up the name of the abortion provider she saw.
I think the tides are turning, that people are seeing how much of a horror abortion truly is. Slavery was legal for a long time before it was finally abolished. In addition, abortion was illegal in this country for much longer than it has been legal.
Women have many different reasons for rejecting child bearing. But a right to privacy does not give someone the right to commit murder. I'm sure you would agree that spousal and child abuse should not be allowed, even in the privacy of the home?
The thing that I dislike about science fiction scenarios is that they distort reality and thus distort often one's moral judgments. For instance, Thomson could have changed her scenario even more by saying that the act of opening one's window is intrinsically linked to the creation of people seeds and to the entry of these people seeds into your house or wherever.
The problem, though, is that then she'd have to justify why opening the window would be intrinisically linked to the creation of people seeds. The problem with science fiction scenarios is that they don't test our real-world intuitions because they create a new world in which intuitions may be completely different from the world in which we live now.
Abortion is a Constitutional issue not philosophical one.
reasoning fails.
If Arizona
made abortion illegal the police now have a mandate to protect children from
their own mothers. You also seem to forget abortion is an incredibly emotional
issue and given the abuse by the police forces in this country against illegal
drug use, women’s rights will be trampled on.
**Ga.
Law Could Give Death Penalty for Miscarriages Mother Jones **
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/02/miscarriage-death-penalty-georgia
Any miscarriage will be investigated in default, how would
you know if the miscarriage is legitimate or not unless you do investigate?
An Arizona
woman visits her doctor and finds she is 10 weeks pregnant. She drives to Nevada and gets an
abortion. She returns to Arizona
visits another doctor, the doctor pulls
her records and finds she was pregnant. The doctor contacts the authorities and
the woman is arrested for murder of her child.
But this is what you wanted; abortions are murder, women who
have abortions in other states will be tried for murder, if they return back to
Arizona. I
would also add if Arizona did make abortion illegal it would take much effort
to simple extradite the woman from Nevada and face trial for murder in Arizona.
Most of my questions are grounded in reality, if you think
abortion is murder, and then you will do everything in power to prevent it.
**New Study Shows Anti-Choice Policies Leading to Widespread
Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women** http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/01/14/new-study-reveals-impact-post-roe-v-wade-anti-abortion-measures-on-women/
Privacy in your own home?
Various examples of your rights to privacy.
The police can not put gps on your car.
Police need warrant for GPS tracking: court
Reuters.
Supreme Court limits police use of drug-sniffing dogs
Reuters
Court Says Police Need Warrant for Blood Test – Supreme
court
Marijuana Smell Not Enough for Traffic Stop: Massachusetts
Supreme court
Kyllo v. United
States: the police cannot use thermal
imaging to search your home from the street.
As long as the police have probable cause they can knock
down your door and search your house, and sometimes these leed to death, as in
this example.
Kathryn Johnston shooting Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting
If a woman is not allowed to have an abortion the state can
pry into her personal for just the slight chance that she might seek an
abortion. Thus she doesn’t have the same rights as men.
Syner, there is no Constitutional right to abortion. In fact, before Roe v. Wade, the unborn were considered persons legally protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Abortion is a philosophical issue. You can't argue whether or not abortion is right or wrong without making philosophical arguments. And to reiterate, Thomson's article is a philosophical defense of abortion, so it requires a philosophical response to show why her reasoning fails.
You're still resorting to scare tactics. Making abortion illegal will not put miscarrying women at risk of going to jail. Abortion was illegal for almost 200 years in this country before it was legalized. Women didn't go to jail then for miscarrying, they won't if it's made illegal again.
You said,
"In Arizona a woman visits her doctor and finds she is 10 weeks pregnant. She drives to Nevada and gets anabortion. She returns to Arizona
visits another doctor, the doctor pulls her records and finds she was pregnant. The doctor contacts the authorities, the woman is arrested for murder of her child."
You obviously are not reading what I write very closely. I already responded to this scenario. If a woman goes and has an abortion in another state if it's legal, then returns to a state where it's illegal, she will not be tried. I'm guess you don't know how extradition works. A person is extradited (if the country will extradite) if they commit a crime, then flee the country. Not the other way around. Cuban cigars are illegal in the United States. If you go to Cuba and smoke them then come back, you won't be arrested (or fined, whatever the penalty is).
Again, your questions are not grounded in reality. You're simply resorting to scare tactics to try and make your case. Abortion is immoral because an innocent human being is killed. Killing innocent human beings should be illegal (as it is, generally), so abortion should also be illegal.
@Clinton Wilcox
Post Roe v. Wade the unborn were considered as persons they were protected by the 14th.
What Supreme court case invoked the use of the 14th to protect the unborn before Roe v. Wade?
Do you have source?
Scare tactics hardly, you just haven’t fully thought out the
ramifications of this country were the state are enforcing different abortion laws.
Ga. Law Could Give Death Penalty for Miscarriages
So this article is bull? It doesn’t happen?
What about this then?
Outcry in America
as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges
Women don’t go to jail if they miscarry, you said yourself
women who miscarry will be investigated, because abortion is illegal its sets
the bar lower, women will be automatically be suspect especially those who are
poorer, which usually always the case,
Cuban cigars and abortion are not comparable. In your own language abortion kills human beings how does that compare with smoking a cigar?
You claim that abortion is murder. As an Arizona law enforcement agent you have a citizen that committed a crime of murder in another state and now has returned. You have records she was pregnant and now she isn’t it doesn’t matter what state
she had the abortion, abortion is still a crime, the baby is clearly dead, this
women would be arrested.
My questions are not grounded in
reality? The problem is you haven’t thought it out.
I do, in fact, have a source. In his book Defending Life: A Legal and Moral Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2007), legal scholar Frank Beckwith talks about that prior to Roe v. Wade the unborn were persons legally protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and that this was one of the jurisprudential challenges that the Supreme Court had to overcome in order to legalize abortion in the United States (pp. 21-22). Anti-abortion laws were set in place in the 19th century (though it had never actually been legal in the United States prior to quickening, which was the time the medical practice believed a human being existed, now they know it exists at fertilization).
I have, in fact, thought out the ramifications of my views. I think you just don't like the idea that a pro-life person has an answer to your challenges.
I never said that women who miscarry will be investigated. I said that they won't, unless there's reasonable cause to suggest she willfully aborted. You're taking my words out of context.
It's irrelevant that Cuban cigars is not like abortion. The principle is the same. If she commits an act in a country or state which is a crime in another country or state, but is not in the one she commits an act in, she will not be tried for that act when she returns. This is a simple concept. I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding it. So no, your questions are not grounded in reality. And since you're not reading what I'm writing and just reiterating your points (rather than responding to mine), I'm going to end our discussion here. You can have the last word, if you wish.
"Cuban cigars and abortion are not comparable. In your own language abortion kills human beings how does that compare with smoking a cigar?"
Wow. Way to completely miss the point.
Her rationale could be because God (magically) made these two things intrinsically linked.
I disagree that wondering about the logistics of illegalizing abortion is just a "scare tactic". If you are pushing for illegalization, it is not unreasonable to ask what you think should happen to those who perform and seek abortions.
Since you want to bring up slavery, the Union did not have a "plan" to deal with the mass of uneducated, unskilled, finacially unstable and feared people that were now citizens. This ultimately led to the KKK, the horrible practices of Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, terrorism against African Americans and systematic discrimination which the effects of which are still felt to this day.
No one argues that abolition shouldn't have been supported. Quite simply, a great deal of the negative effects in America could have been prevented by having a plan in place. Countries that addressed the issues abolition posed head-on had a much smoother transition and didn't require a civil war to have African slavery abolished.
I doubt anyone wants the US to end up like El Salvador or Ireland, where women die instead of getting life-saving abortions because of the abortion laws. Or, maybe this is not a concern for SPLers? Perhaps you guys feel that any woman that may unfortunately die or is negatively impacted by a poorly thought-out ban is a small price to pay to save "babies"?
Clinton Wilcox
Pre Roe v. Wade how many
women were actually prosecuted for seeking an abortion, in the middle of having an abortion, and how many women were charged with murder after they had an
abortion? I don’t get the impression women were actually tried if they had an abortion in the pre Rove v. Wade America.
Women now in some state
are being prosecuted, investigated for there miscarriage, this is a fact, I had provided article(s) proving that to be true. If Arizona makes abortion illegal, you just vested the state to look more closely at miscarriages. Since abortion is an emotional issue for some, some in law enforcement will push the boundaries of the law, to save babies, for some the ends justify the means will be a mantra.
We don’t need any more “instances” of law enforcement pushing the boundaries and breaking the laws. When law enforcement
makes a mistake it affects are real and deadly as in the example of the shooting death of Kathryn Johnson.
Loving v. Virginia
Paraphrase alert
1958 Mildred and Richard drove to Washington DC
to get married because it was against the law in Virginia for mixed races to be married
(Racial Integrity Act of 1924). The now married couple returned back to Virginia an on an unknown tip the police raided there home hoping to find them having sex (Talk about commitment to enforcing a law, eh?) The police found them in bed and their marriage certificate and arrested for breaking the law.
It was illegal for them to
be married in Virginia, they left to Washington to get
married, when they returned, they were arrested. Does this sound familiar?
If Arizona has a law abortion is murder. If a citizen of Arizona (woman) had an abortion, in other state, once she returns, she will be tired for murder. If the woman never returns she will not be tried. Why would Arizona bother to make abortion illegal if the citizens can simply leave the state, have an abortion in a pro choice state and just return?
I also can’t imagine how
you compare smoking a cigar and the killing of a child? Murder is a totally different
type of crime there isn’t any statue of limitations to murder. So comparing the
two together for me is mind boggling
After all, Thomson already defied reality with the Violinist scenario, which cannot occur in real life.
Using the words "God" and "magic" together is a massive strawman. It's true that most of Thomson's essay defies reality (at least her burglar analogy, while severely flawed, was grounded in reality). But God created the sex act as he wanted it. His plan from the very beginning was for a man and woman to be married and produce children. Nothing magic about it.
Wondering about the logistics is not scare tactics. My comment was directed to Syner, specifically (since even a cursory perusal of his "questions" would show that he really doesn't even understand how the law works.
Would you say we should have kept slavery legal while we simply "worked on a plan" to deal with the repercussions of it? It seems to me that a human rights violation, as extreme as slavery and abortion, should not be legal while we sit around and think about what might happen. I am actually in favor of reforming many of our governmental policies to help pregnant women and single mothers. But while the government is unwilling to help I, and others like me, pick up the slack.
We're civilized adults. The KKK lynchings, etc. should never have happened, and you can't blame making slavery illegal for the actions of gravely immoral human beings. Nothing excuses their behavior, and it seems the height of racism to imply that it would have been better to leave slavery legal rather than risk these things happening. Especially since they happened while slavery was legal, anyway. Instead, we should expect reasonable human beings to suck it up and not take their aggression out on innocent human beings.
Here's a question for you–if someone got an interracial marriage in a state where it was legal pre-Loving and then got a divorce in this same state, and afterwards returned to his/her home state where interracial marriage was illegal *after already getting divorced*, would he/she still be prosecuted in his/her home state? The reason that I'm asking this question is because even if a couple would have gotten an interracial marriage in a state where it was legal, their marriage would still exist (for a lack of a better word) if they returned to their home state where interracial marriage was still illegal and did not get a divorce beforehand.
"Why would Arizona bother to make abortion illegal if the citizens can simply leave the state, have an abortion in a pro choice state and just return?"
Because not everyone might be willing to do this, and thus some prenatal lives might be saved. Also, eventually if everything goes well for our side some more U.S. states can also ban abortion later on.
@coyote
The main problem with
prolifers is there is no framework on what a post Row v wade would look like.
We are dealing with laws, not philosophy, and these laws will affect people,women in general. The Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, it was illegal for mixed races to get married regardless were they were married, so if they were found out they would be arrested, which they were.
If Arizona made abortion illegal and equates
abortion to murder, simply leaving the state and returning is not going to absolve you from the act, if caught. If you’re going to push out Row v. Wade and invade a women’s privacy when she is pregnant, to save babies, do you really think any prolifer will simply accept women to leave the state, have an abortion, and
return as if nothing happened?
Remember the mantra; you’re saving babies, how far would you go? A woman’s right to privacy has been thrown out to protect the fetus in her womb. You have created a world were anything goes especially when it deems the state has a right in a woman’s womb.
Traveling to Arizona either to New Mexico, California, or Nevada, or Mexico takes about 4-5 hours one way. Do you really think that is going to stop a woman to from having a safe abortion, in a prochoice state? If a person you knew had an out of state abortion would you report her? She committed murder it would be your duty to report her, if you didn’t you would be an accomplice.
I personally do not think
pro-lifers are doing when it comes to a post Roe v. Wade world. I don’t get it
would be like the book a Handmaidens tale, but I would gander it would be
pretty close.
Handmaiden Tale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
We are civilized adults
Where?
400,000 kids in foster care, 780,000 kids abused by their own parents per year, 2.4 million Americans in Jail. If your a alcoholic you get medical intervention, if your a drug user, you get jail.
You wish to create legislation were the state forces itself in a woman's womb this is what a post Roe v. Wade would look like.
Scare tactics, I don't know the law? If you knew what you were talking about you point me to a book or article of a what a post Roe v Wade world would look like, but you haven't, cause you don't have a framework either.
I've already given you my framework. You just refuse to accept it. I've already answered your questions, and have shown you many times you have no understanding of how the law even works. At this point, I'm just going to say good day and stop replying, since you're unwilling to have a reasonable conversation about this. You may have the last word, if you wish.
Clinton
Frame work other than just saying "it won't happen?"
*pardon any errors, not on home PC*
No. The plan can get worked on while illegalization is going through the legislative process. With slavery in America, the reprocussions could have been addressed simultaniously to abolition. Instead, they were ignored with grave consequences. This is not directed towards you, personally, but the consequences illegalizing abortion is something that is largely ignored by many anti-abortion groups and anti-abortion individuals. I see no reason why it should be ingored, or why the issues can't be address while these people and groups are working towards illegalization. There's no reason it should be an afterthought.
Sometimes I think it is ignored for the same reason PC organizations do not like to address things like Gosnell, emotions related to performing abortions: they think addressing these issues may be perceived as questioning the validity of their position.
This is a misguided notion on both fronts.
You are correct, Coyote. I was mentioning those events as an effect and unintended consequence of a poorly planned abolition process.I think he simply mistyped because he seemed to understand the point I was making and addressed it accordingly.
A strawman is just where you misrepresent someone's position. You attack and refute a weaker position without actually addressing the actual argument. You don't have to do it purposely to attack a strawman.
God created sex. But in order for either one of us to justify our position, we have to argue for it,which is beyond the scope of this blog.
God doesn't ignore scientific laws. He works withing them, though he does arguably suspend them from time to time (again, justifying this claim is beyond the scope of this blog).
However, you seem to have missed my point altogether. This "alternate universe" with people-seeds doesn't tell us anything about this world bcause in a world like that, our intuitions may be completely different than in this one.
If all of these "analogies" are sufficient to justify killing a child inside the womb, why not use them to justify killing a child outside of the womb? Even minutes outside the womb, the child is using you, is dependent on you to survive. Additionally, how laws ultimately work in reality should have no bearing on whether or not an act is moral or just.