Arstechinca linked (https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/23.11...) the authors rebuttal but didn't elaborate beyond it. I did read it and i am inclined to believe it really is the press of being used in a Supreme Court case rather than the papers' methods. Can someone with more expertise tell me if the rebuttal is bogus?
I am pro abortion access but I think this is the wrong way to go about it. Because now you're arguing about whether or to what extent a child is involved, something there is not universal consensus on among experts in this domain.
It remains a question of medical privacy and autonomy. Ethically it is related to how you cannot be compelled to donate a kidney to save someone's life, you cannot even be compelled to donate a toenail clipping if that would do it. Refusing may be morally wrong, it may even make you evil, but it is not a crime.
Societally we have determined that this is an absolute line of autonomy, that crossing it opens the way to atrocity. Behind this door is forced medical experimentation, involuntary organ harvesting, eugenics. You may not be compelled to use your body for another's benefit against your will, even if it is a child.
Alike in this one important way: if your own child needs your kidney to live, it is not a crime to deny it to them. People will hate you for making this choice, I would myself condemn it. But you cannot be compelled by force of law.
Being forced to donate a kidney is different. We should always allow people to decide to be left alone and for nature to take its course.
Allowing a child to grow naturally inside his or her mother's body is the natural course of events. Pregnancies terminate naturally at birth.
Brutally murdering your own child and taking away many decades of life from that child to avoid a few months of inconvenience is an unfair trade. If the mother gained more than a year of life at the expense of one year of the child's life, I would be more sympathetic to the baby killers, but in the case of abortion-murder, the mother avoids a few months of discomfort by taking away maybe 8 decades of life from her own child.
Disclaimer: Relatives have told me I survived an attempt to abortion-murder me. I want revenge.
> Allowing a child to grow naturally inside his or her mother's body is the natural course of events. Pregnancies terminate naturally at birth.
Kind of. The "natural" course of events you describe depends on the pregnant person to interact differently with society. A pregnant person eats more (and hence has to go out of their way to buy more food), pays more for healthcare products/services, and has to worry about maternity leave. (In the US, employers are mandated to provide only unpaid maternity leave [1].) Working and paying bills while pregnant or not means relying on an unnatural system called the economy within the larger maybe-natural system called society. In other words, carrying a pregnancy to term is not entirely a sequence of natural events. (Meanwhile, after birth the "natural course of events" analogy stops applying, because one plausible natural course of events for a born person is starving to death.) But enough digressing on my part.
> murdering your own child and taking away many decades of life from that child to avoid a few months of inconvenience is an unfair trade
The inconvenience of pregnancy is not simply the pregnancy. Even if you ignore maternal mortality (and pregnancies from rape, incest, and bad luck in cases where the pregnant person had used contraceptives correctly), your estimate of many decades of life for the child translates to almost two decades of inconvenience for the caretakers of the child, assuming that the average person doesn't become mostly independent before turning 18. (When I say caretakers, I'm including cases where the born child is sent to foster care or an adopting family, as well as cases where the child gets at least one different caretaker before 18.) Additionally, the less capable the childbearer is of childcare, the more inconvenience the born child will have.
I feel that bodily autonomy for a pregnant person is more than just the convenience or inconvenience for the bearer. I haven't formed a coherent argument about bodily autonomy yet. But especially in matters of bodily autonomy, I don't think everything immoral should be illegal.
It was the mother's decision, and (cases of rape excepted) she made it when she chose to have sex. If, as a consequence of her free choice, another human being comes to rely on her for survival, she must accept that consequence, not kill the helpless child.
Do you have a functioning female reproductive system?
If you do, your statements/beliefs may well apply to you.
Beyond that, you have nothing useful or worthwhile to say to or about anyone else.
I don't doubt that you believe the statements you made. As is appropriate.
But that you think you (or anyone else, for that matter) have some sort of authority over the bodies of others (in that you can prescribe appropriate actions) is what's outrageous.
Think terminating pregnancies is a bad thing? Then don't terminate your own pregnancies.
Otherwise, mind your own business. And what goes on inside the bodies of others is most definitely not your business.
Authority over other people's bodies is the basis of all law. For example, if I use my body to shoot up a school, society has a right to stop me and hold me to account for the consequences of the actions I took with said body.
More generally, my unlimited rights over my own body end when the actions I perform with that body affect other people. And an unborn child is "other people."
I was raised agnostic (and still am), and for most of my life I vaguely believed that abortion should be legal up to ~12-16 weeks—this was typical view in Europe, and I had never thought to question it. Until I came across the following (WARNING GRAPHIC): https://www.liveaction.org/news/infant-bodies-infanticide-at.... My "trained-in prejudices" were overcome in an instant, and I acquired my present view of the issue.
Pregnancy doesn't just happen. Cases of rape excepted, the child in the mother's womb came to be in that womb, and to depend on the mother for survival, due to actions taken by the mother. Therefore, the mother is responsible for the well-being of her child.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 57.7 ms ] threadBeing used in a Supreme Court case of course would get extra scrutiny.
It remains a question of medical privacy and autonomy. Ethically it is related to how you cannot be compelled to donate a kidney to save someone's life, you cannot even be compelled to donate a toenail clipping if that would do it. Refusing may be morally wrong, it may even make you evil, but it is not a crime.
Societally we have determined that this is an absolute line of autonomy, that crossing it opens the way to atrocity. Behind this door is forced medical experimentation, involuntary organ harvesting, eugenics. You may not be compelled to use your body for another's benefit against your will, even if it is a child.
Allowing a child to grow naturally inside his or her mother's body is the natural course of events. Pregnancies terminate naturally at birth.
Brutally murdering your own child and taking away many decades of life from that child to avoid a few months of inconvenience is an unfair trade. If the mother gained more than a year of life at the expense of one year of the child's life, I would be more sympathetic to the baby killers, but in the case of abortion-murder, the mother avoids a few months of discomfort by taking away maybe 8 decades of life from her own child.
Disclaimer: Relatives have told me I survived an attempt to abortion-murder me. I want revenge.
Kind of. The "natural" course of events you describe depends on the pregnant person to interact differently with society. A pregnant person eats more (and hence has to go out of their way to buy more food), pays more for healthcare products/services, and has to worry about maternity leave. (In the US, employers are mandated to provide only unpaid maternity leave [1].) Working and paying bills while pregnant or not means relying on an unnatural system called the economy within the larger maybe-natural system called society. In other words, carrying a pregnancy to term is not entirely a sequence of natural events. (Meanwhile, after birth the "natural course of events" analogy stops applying, because one plausible natural course of events for a born person is starving to death.) But enough digressing on my part.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave_in_the_United_S...
> murdering your own child and taking away many decades of life from that child to avoid a few months of inconvenience is an unfair trade
The inconvenience of pregnancy is not simply the pregnancy. Even if you ignore maternal mortality (and pregnancies from rape, incest, and bad luck in cases where the pregnant person had used contraceptives correctly), your estimate of many decades of life for the child translates to almost two decades of inconvenience for the caretakers of the child, assuming that the average person doesn't become mostly independent before turning 18. (When I say caretakers, I'm including cases where the born child is sent to foster care or an adopting family, as well as cases where the child gets at least one different caretaker before 18.) Additionally, the less capable the childbearer is of childcare, the more inconvenience the born child will have.
I feel that bodily autonomy for a pregnant person is more than just the convenience or inconvenience for the bearer. I haven't formed a coherent argument about bodily autonomy yet. But especially in matters of bodily autonomy, I don't think everything immoral should be illegal.
So we should just terminate the baby to prevent any possible inconvenience she might experience? That is some twisted logic.
When it's your uterus, it's your decision. Otherwise, mind your own damn business!
Unfortunately, given your outrageous statement, I expect you're not a reasonable person.
And more's the pity.
- Sex is (in most cases) a mother's free choice
- A child's conception is the consequence of this choice
- This consequence gives the mother a moral duty to care for her child
If you do, your statements/beliefs may well apply to you.
Beyond that, you have nothing useful or worthwhile to say to or about anyone else.
I don't doubt that you believe the statements you made. As is appropriate.
But that you think you (or anyone else, for that matter) have some sort of authority over the bodies of others (in that you can prescribe appropriate actions) is what's outrageous.
Think terminating pregnancies is a bad thing? Then don't terminate your own pregnancies.
Otherwise, mind your own business. And what goes on inside the bodies of others is most definitely not your business.
More generally, my unlimited rights over my own body end when the actions I perform with that body affect other people. And an unborn child is "other people."
That's a matter of significant debate in the medical community. And in religious[0] communities as well.
You appear to be mistaking your trained-in prejudices for the laws of nature. I assure you, they are not the latter, only the former.
As I mentioned, you do not appear to be a "reasonable" person with whom I can disagree.
And so I'll say it one, last time: mind your own fucking business.
[0] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-fetus-in-jewish...
I was raised agnostic (and still am), and for most of my life I vaguely believed that abortion should be legal up to ~12-16 weeks—this was typical view in Europe, and I had never thought to question it. Until I came across the following (WARNING GRAPHIC): https://www.liveaction.org/news/infant-bodies-infanticide-at.... My "trained-in prejudices" were overcome in an instant, and I acquired my present view of the issue.
That's as may be. However, unless it's your (in the individual, not the general, sense) body, it's none of your business or concern.