Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Myths
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
      • Abortion Views and Gender
    • Collections
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
      • Fixed that meme for you
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Becoming Pro-Life
    • Publications
      • Overview Brochure
      • Why Secular People Should Care
    • Store
  • Contact
  • Get Involved
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Why support SPL?
  • Donate
  • Menu Menu

One or Many

August 26, 2015/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Clinton Wilcox

Much has been said about bodily rights arguments, the arguments that state a woman has a right to do whatever she wants with anything inside her body, or that no woman should be forced to remain as life support for an unborn human being. I have responded to these arguments elsewhere. However, a similar argument used by some is that it’s the dependency on her body that justifies the mother’s right to kill the child. Usually one of the responses to this idea is that even born children are completely dependent on their mother for survival. An infant cannot feed himself, change himself, drive to the store to pick up necessities, etc. And the response to this is usually before birth, the child is dependent upon only one person, the mother, for survival, whereas after birth many people can take care of the child. Therefore, before birth the mother can kill the child (since no one else can take care of him), but after birth it’s wrong because someone else can take care of him.

This is one of those arguments that just makes you scratch your head about how anyone can find it compelling. Why is it that the fewer people you burden, the more right someone has to kill you? And at any rate, this idea seems to be backward. The more dependent you are on somebody, the more of an obligation they have to help you, not less.
Former director of Justice for All, David Lee, uses the following analogy to respond to this idea. Suppose you’re at a public pool, and you’re the last one out. You’re drying off but you hear a splash. You look in the pool and a child has fallen into the deep end, drowning. Assuming you can swim, do you have an obligation to save this child? It would seem that yes, you do. You can’t just walk away, because you’re the only one this child is now dependent on to save his life.
This is one of those arguments that won’t seem to ever die. Nevertheless, it can be pretty easily dispatched.

Edit: a few people pointed out that I wasn’t very clear in what argument I was responding to. I’ll chalk it up to fatigue of spending a few hours trying to write something, then rejecting it, and eventually writing this at 12:00 midnight, which is way past my bedtime (I’m an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy). 🙂 I’ve edited this to make it clearer.

Related Posts

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
  • Link to Instagram
https://i0.wp.com/secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/swimming-pool-2-1389681626mdM.jpg?fit=200%2C133&ssl=1 133 200 Clinton Wilcox https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Clinton Wilcox2015-08-26 12:09:002023-02-14 15:12:53One or Many
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption and Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • en español
  • Late-Term Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, and court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • SPL Emails
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Your Stories

Archive

As the national conversation on abortion intensifies, it’s more important than ever that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Please donate today.

DONATE
© Copyright 2023 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup

Related Posts

Recap: SPL at #ProtestPP San Jose Registration open for Vita et Veritas conference at Yale October 2-3
Scroll to top