Asymmetrical Information

"All too often, in my more radically pro-choice days, I heard people actually arguing that the babies themselves would be better off not being born, since their mother didn't want them. Say what? Even if my mother hadn't wanted me, I'd damn well rather be alive than dead, and so would pretty much everyone still walking the earth."

Are you happier having been born than you would be if you had been never been conceived, because your parents used contraceptives? Is this an argument for banning contraception?

This is just silly.

Yes, condoms are cheap. This is an inevitable consequence of them being inexpensive. My son, my pride and joy, and, as an adult one of my best friends, is the result of having one break.

What I dislike about the current lack of a uniform requirement of parental notification is how this undermines parental authority in the home. This concern is not just about abortion, but applies to all areas where the government interferes in the parent/child relationship. While some parents are bad, the law had not ought to assume that all of them are. It would be far better for the law to support parents rather than creating the sense that a parent's decision is appealable to the local whims of governmental authority.

More topical (than my prior comment), I agree with Jane's policy proscription. Abortions should be legal, but intentionally difficult to obtain. That's the problem with Roe. Because the Supreme Court took upon itself the responsibility for setting policy in this area, it's all but impossible to have any nuance at all in the area. Because it's a "right", virtually nothing can be allowed to interfere with the exercise of that right. Had the Supremes not abrogated unto themselves this decision, the democratic process would have, by now, generated a consensus that virtually all of us could support. Heck, before Roe, Ronald Reagan (!) as governor of California signed the bill making abortion legal in that state. If he could support the legalization of abortion, the rest of the country would have followed rather quickly had the court not stopped the process.

"There's a belief among more radical pro-choicers which I truly do not emotionally understand: that anything that makes women feel bad about having an abortion, from telling an unwilling spouse to having protesters shout that she should reconsider, should be discouraged By Any Means Necessary. Intertwined with this is an assumption that we shouldn't try in any way to discourage women from having an abortion once they've gotten pregnant."

The underlying point that I'm surprised you're missing here is that abortion is a private, personal decision - no one should encourage or discourage a woman from having or not having an abortion. It's PRIVATE. Government shouldn't have any say over medical and/or reproductive choices that women and men make. If a woman is uncomfortable telling her husband she's pregnant, then that's her problem and an issue with her marriage, not the government's.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing Roe overturned - Democrats would take back state legislatures faster than you can blink, and all of the decades old bans on abortion still on the books in many states would be repealed. And then we a step closer to where things should be - no government involvement in issues concerning sex, medical treatments and reproduction.

No, Anna, it's not a personal private problem.

The rights of at least two other individuals are at stake... the father and the child.

I've also been relentlessly indoctrinated in the feminist belief that only the rights of women matter. Guess what? That's a crock.

Sorry if you don't want to consider the rights of men and children. The rights of men in the lives of their progeny, and the rights of children to live trump the woman's right to kill the child. And the rights of men and children in this regard should be enforced by law.

I'm fed up with this nonsense that only women have rights. It's time to get this issue out of the sloganeering pit. And, no women shouldn't have the right to kill their children and deprive a man of his progeny because the child gestates in a woman's womb.

Oh hell, deciding to smoke or not is every bit a private decision as having abortion; few things affect the future of society more than killing, or allowing to be born, fetuses. Somehow, though, very few people have any inhibitions about public efforts to discourage smoking (or eating unhealthy foods), or in making people feel bad about making the "wrong" choice in these areas.

When did this society devolve into such a pack of milquetoasts that it was thought there was right to not have people attempt to make you feel bad? Geez, just grow a spine, would 'ya?

I've also been relentlessly indoctrinated in the feminist belief that only the rights of women matter. Guess what? That's a crock.

The gender feminist mantra on pregnancy and abortion can be summed up as “my body, my choice, our responsibility.”

I'm all for the government using any non-coercive methods it can to encourage women to carry their pregnancy to term, including things that will make them feel bad about aborting.

This is the basic issue. Is it the gov't's job to do this? it is ironic that conservatives, who usually take the libertarian approach to gov't, want the gov't to be all powerful in this area.

The problem these days is this: issues such as parental, spousal notification and partial-birth abortion are foot-in-the-door issues. That is, they are steps on the way to a complete ban of abortion, rather than ends in themselves. So what becomes more important to both sides is enacting or defeating them on this basis, rather than debating them on their own merits.

In an ideal world, a woman would discuss an abortion with all involved. She might not for many reasons, not the least of which is fear for physical safety. Is it up to the gov't to force notification, no matter what? That's the issue, not whether notification is a good idea.

However much I might agree or disagree with Jane's prescriptions or restrictions, I do think that distinctions should be made on the basis of the stage of pregnancy or trimester. A foetus 5 weeks along is not the same as one 25 weeks along, and the same set of rules should not apply.

Jane Galt writes:

Abortion is something done for the benefit of the mother, for which the child who will not be born pays the ultimate price. Trying to elide, sugarcoat, or invert this is morally bankrupt.

Back in the 80s, Michael Kinsley wrote a snarky review of Jonathan Schell's ponderous anti-nuke essay The Fate Of The Earth in which he puzzled over Schell's declamation that nuclear war would be so much worse than any other kind of war because not only would people die, future generations would not be born.

Kinsley asked, IIRC, if it is so critical that children be born, why was Schell banging away at a keyboard when he should have been banging away somewhere else?

Can anyone explain why we need parental notificaton laws. Name one non-emergency medical procedure that a minor and walk into a clinic/hopsital/Dr's office and recieve with a gaurdian approval. Does it strike anyone else as odd that a teen age male can be convicted of statatory rape for having sex with a 15 year old (presumably because 15 year olds don't fully understand the ramifications), but that same 15 year old is sufficiently wise enough to understand the risks and ramifications of an invasive surgical procedure?

reposted-correcting for typos

Can anyone explain why we need parental notificaton laws. Name one non-emergency medical procedure that a minor can walk into a clinic/hopsital/Dr's office and recieve without a gaurdian's approval. Does it strike anyone else as odd that a teen age male can be convicted of statatory rape for having sex with a 15 year old (presumably because 15 year olds don't fully understand the ramifications), but that same 15 year old is sufficiently wise enough to understand the risks and ramifications of an invasive surgical procedure?

Jane: "All too often, in my more radically pro-choice days, I heard people actually arguing that the babies themselves would be better off not being born, since their mother didn't want them. Say what? Even if my mother hadn't wanted me, I'd damn well rather be alive than dead, and so would pretty much everyone still walking the earth."

This opinion is by no means universal. There are people alive who wish they'd never been born. There are people who hate living so much that they decide to kill themselves. There is such a thing as quality of life. Alive and dead are discrete states while the desire to be alive or dead are not. Regardless, at the very least before conception and arguably before evidence of higher brain function a fetus is a potential being. A potential being has no desires and before conception is neither alive nor dead. Saying they would rather be born is only true in the same sense that the statement "invisible unicorns are pink" is true.

Stephen: "I'm fed up with this nonsense that only women have rights. It's time to get this issue out of the sloganeering pit. And, no women shouldn't have the right to kill their children and deprive a man of his progeny because the child gestates in a woman's womb."

Of course men have rights, but do they have the right to hijack a woman's body to produce their offspring? Carrying a child to term is not an inconsequential thing. Caring for that child for the rest of its life is also a pretty big deal. Are you saying that a man's desire to have offspring overrides a woman's right to determine the course of her life? How else could your statement be interpreted? What sort of precedent does that line of thought establish?

Thorley Winston: "The gender feminist mantra on pregnancy and abortion can be summed up as “my body, my choice, our responsibility.”

Unfortunately you are right as any man of an unexpected or unwanted child can tell you. While I don't believe a man has the right to force a woman to carry a child to term, I also do not believe a woman has the right to force offspring on a man. There are legal options in between conception and legal responsibility for a child. Why is it that if a woman becomes pregnant and the man wants her to get an abortion or give the child up for adoption the man has no say and is forever responsible for a choice he has no say in? This is essentially the opposite of the above problem. If a man does not have the right to force a woman to bring his offspring to term, why does a woman have the right to force a man to bear the responsibility of a child he does not want? The fact that he slept with her is not relevant as sex doesn't equal procreation.

"Even if my mother hadn't wanted me, I'd damn well rather be alive than dead, and so would pretty much everyone still walking the earth. Abortion is something done for the benefit of the mother, for which the child who will not be born pays the ultimate price"

1) Of course after having lived your life you would rather be alive instead of aborted. Abortion is a choice and deciding on an abortion is not just a simple choice to benefit the mother. There main be many other complicating factors. You could not make the same argument, if the child was extremely brain damaged before birth and not aborted. Would keeping such be a benefit to the mother, the child or to society.

2)Deciding to keep a child has an impact that reaches far beyound the mother and the child. As argued by Steven Levitt (Freakonomics)," Empirically, what matters is the fact that abortions are disproportionately used on unwanted pregnancies, and disproportionately by teenage women and single women" At least from the statistics side. Levitt has shown a strong correlation (I understand that correlation is not cause)between Roe v Wade and the decline in crime that he associates with the reduction in unwanted children

On the parental notification issue: consider that pregnant is not the worst thing a young woman can get from unprotected sex. Whether or not an abortion results, at least some discussion of the life-threatening possiblities of STD's should ensue.

Ron Cook, if you'd read Freakonomics, you'd know that Levitt points out that even if you assume that a fetal life has only 1/100th of the value of a human life, the costs in terms of net lives is sharply negative.

Will Allen writes: "very few people have any inhibitions about public efforts to discourage smoking (or eating unhealthy foods), or in making people feel bad about making the "wrong" choice in these areas." Well, libertarians (like me) have a lot of "inhibitions" about public (i.e., taxpayer-funded) efforts along those lines, because the consequences of smoking, eating unhealthy foods, drinking, and smoking dope should be accepted as a personal responsibility. As for abortion: a well-known consequence of sex is pregnancy. That consequence, too, should be accepted as a personal responsibility and not taken as an opportunity to end a life. How can a libertarian say that? Read this and find out.

Is anyone getting to see the "last abortion clinic" documentary on PBS tonight? I don't have TV access, so I can't watch.

Jane writes:

"Ron Cook, if you'd read Freakonomics, you'd know that Levitt points out that even if you assume that a fetal life has only 1/100th of the value of a human life, the costs in terms of net lives is sharply negative."

What value do you then put on potential foetal life? Surely a healthy egg in a healthy woman that could become a child should have some value?

Tom writes:

"As for abortion: a well-known consequence of sex is pregnancy. That consequence, too, should be accepted as a personal responsibility and not taken as an opportunity to end a life. How can a libertarian say that? Read this and find out."

If your opinions are followed to their conclusions you find that most forms of oral contraceptives are now illegal as they work by making the womb an inhospitable environment for a fertilized egg. In other words, they cause a very early abortion. On the page you link it states that the moment of conception is when life begins. My question is why draw the line there? If a woman is healthy and sexually active and with a healthy partner then without intervention she will become pregnant. The egg is alive. Why is the egg any less of a potential human than the zygote? Why is it permissible to prevent the fertilization of an egg via condoms? Why is it ok for a woman to menstruate and thereby kill a potential human?

As to a well known consequence of sex being pregnancy I'd like to point out that having your house broken into is a well known consequence of buying a house. If a home owner takes every precaution possible to protect their property from burglars, knowing that no house can be made truly crime proof, is it their fault if their house is broken into? The vast majority of sexual couplings do not result in pregnancy just as the vast majority of houses are not broken into.

Between your stance of life begins at the earliest possible moment and consent to have sex being the same as consent to raise a child you seem to be arguing that sex is only for procreation and that no responsible person would engage in sex unless they were prepared to raise a child.

Tom, I'd join you in opposing such taxpayer funded methods. I was referring more to those who object to private citizens voicing their objectiono to women getting abortions, based on the notion that such women have some sort of right to not feel bad. Can we reserve infantilization for actual infants?

Are you happier having been born than you would be if you had been never been conceived, because your parents used contraceptives? Is this an argument for banning contraception? This is just silly.

Nah, that would be your logic. By same logic I could recplace "contraceptives" with "didn't have sex that night" and it means the same thing. What that alternation, and your unaltered argument, both miss is that something medically unique occurs at conception. What conception means to you as a legal issue may vary based on your theological, moral, and social goals, but to overlook its relevance is a root of silliness.

Other silly logic:

Of course men have rights, but do they have the right to hijack a woman's body to produce their offspring?

and

If a home owner takes every precaution possible to protect their property from burglars, knowing that no house can be made truly crime proof, is it their fault if their house is broken into?

That is called rape, and there are other legal means for dealing with it. Attempts to apply that that kind of language more broadly fall fully under the headings of Sloganeering And Rhetoric.

anony-mouse, I did not mean to imply rape with the house analogy, what I mean to imply was that if all precautions were taken to prevent pregnancy and pregnancy did still occur can it be said that pregnancy was the natural result of engaging in sexual intercourse?

Additionally I find your labelling logic as 'silly' without a refutation to be a little odd. You state that we are missing the medical uniqueness of conception. Can you explain how the unique nature of conception changes the argument that seems to rely wholly on something's potential rather than its current state? Jason was addressing Jane's comment that a baby would rather have been born than been aborted. By that logic, his statement is just as valid as is your altered version.

How is it silly to ask if a man has the right to force a woman to bring a child to term assuming abortion is illegal? That comment was directly addressing Stephen who said, "And, no women shouldn't have the right to kill their children and deprive a man of his progeny because the child gestates in a woman's womb." Correct me if I am wrong Steven, but aren't you saying that if a woman you have slept with becomes pregnant and wants to abort that she may not without your permission? Assuming that is what he was saying, how is that not hijacking the woman's body to produce the man's offspring?

Finally, your idea that something medically unique occurs at conception is itself silly. Something medically unique occurs almost every moment during gestation. Something medically unique occurs when an egg is released into the fallopian tube. Something medically unique happens at the moment of orgasm. In fact, the moment of orgasm is more unique than the moment of conception, at least from a biological point of view. What is so special about the uniqueness of conception that makes it matter so much? Is the combining of DNA that big of a deal? Why isn't it that big of a deal in other species? Would it be because they don't have the potential to become human or is it something else? In other words, what besides potential do you have to hang your hat on?

To a degree the power of the woman to require child support is a biological fait accompli. I'm fairly comfortable with that. But, at least under the government that we have now, the idea that the government doesn't have the right to make policy choices re: abortion is well, just freaking silly. The government gets to make policy decisions about pretty much everything.

I don't know. Abortion is one of those topics that gets muddier the more you think about it. I don't think any answer is fully satisfactory.

O'Scully,
You're being a little cute with your remark that something medically unique occurs at every moment during gestation. Here's the big difference:
Prior to a sperm fertilising an egg, there is clearly no identifiable individual human. In fact, many times, every single one of those millions of sperm miss the egg completely.

When the egg gets fertilised, that's the moment where we have a clearly identifiable human being underway. We can all argue how fully formed it is. However, when you point to the picture on the ultrasound to what later becomes a child, there is no confusion about whose set of cells THAT belongs to.

"I get the sense that there's an underlying belief among a lot of people that it's somehow better if those babies aren't born"

Yup. Planned Parenthood was associated with the eugenics and anti-immigrant movements of the early 20th century.

I had an abortion after my careful and serious birth control planning failed me. I am not suffering with huge guilt.

But since then I have married and had a child. The experience of raising that child has changed my mind. If I could go back in time, I would not have that abortion.

I support the right of women to choose abortion. But I find it grotesque that the foremost goal of the "women's" movement is absolute freedom to abort fetuses at any time and for any reason, without the involvement of others affected by the decision.

Roe, which I hailed back in the day, has bequeathed us a mess. Abortion was always a fraught issue. We could never reach a consensus. But we needed to have the discussion.

It seems to me that if a woman can get an abortion without needing to involve the father, then a man should be able to refuse child support. If it's the mother's choice on whether or not to have an abortion, surely it is the father's right to decide whether or not he wants to have anything to do with the child.

The asymmetry of allowing choice only for the mother, but compelling obligations on the father is absurd.

If abortion is a private, personal medical decision, then surely child support is a private, personal legal decision.

Unless, of course, we want to just come out and say that we are blatently discriminating against the fathers.

With 10,000 daily readers I don't expect Jane to reply to very many emails but I did copy and attach this column to my own website. By coincidence I wrote a column on related issues today. I happen to be pro choice. I rather like the fact that Jane is a hardass and doesn't sugarcoat her analysis. There is much that Jane says that I tend to aggree with. If anyone who manages this blog objects to my copying Jane's material let me know and I'll remove it. You can find it linked to this page of my website: http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora05/fivesexanecdotes.htm

Jane doesn't sugarcoat things? She calls what the protesters do trying to persuade women to reconsider. No, that's not quite what they do. They scream "Don't murder your baby!", "Baby killer!!", and other epithets. They scream at women through bullhorns from close range. They do many things but most of them don't stop at trying to reasonably persuade.

It's something medically unique from the moment the sperm meets the egg? If it's really so precious why did nature arrange for so many of those events to spontaneously abort? Once that magic event happens what also happens a great deal of the time is that this instantly recognizable human doesn't implant in the uterus at all or implants in a place where it doesn't survive long enough for the woman to even know it happened.

gazzer, when does that ultrasound take place? First day of pregnancy? Second? First week? Second?

Frankly, trying to persuade women that they shouldn't have an abortion is something that I can't argue with a lot. But all of this other crap I'm reading here comes down to people who know that they can't be wrong about when a fetus should be treated as a child and know that their views should be the law.

anony-mouse, I did not mean to imply rape with the house analogy, what I mean to imply was that if all precautions were taken to prevent pregnancy and pregnancy did still occur can it be said that pregnancy was the natural result of engaging in sexual intercourse?

This constitutes what single-digit percentage or fraction of a percentage of actual pregnancies? And thereafter, why is that tiny minority of possible cases a viable argument for broad policy making?

Additionally I find your labelling logic as 'silly' without a refutation to be a little odd.

A refutation wasn't required. If you don't understand in advance of having a position on abortion that conception creates a unique set of DNA and therefore produces something that can be uniquely identified for purposes of the argument, there isn't much intelligent discussion to be had thereafter.

If further explanation is needed, I think gazzer already provided it, so I'll leave off there.

Jim S:

It's something medically unique from the moment the sperm meets the egg? If it's really so precious why did nature arrange for so many of those events to spontaneously abort? Once that magic event happens what also happens a great deal of the time is that this instantly recognizable human doesn't implant in the uterus at all or implants in a place where it doesn't survive long enough for the woman to even know it happened.

Perhaps one of these days, you will give evidence that you understand the difference between something occuring naturally, and a human inducing it. As far as I can recall, you manage to vanish into the woodwork every time someone raises that objection to your reasoning on that line. Let me state it this way: by your own reckoning, since you could naturally die of heart failure, it is practically indistinguishable if I put a bullet through your heart.

I'm uncomfortably agnostic about the whole abortion debate, but it seems to me that many of the commenters are tiptoeing around the basic conflict. When it really comes down to it, I figure there are two honest positions on this issue:

1. A fetus is a human life and therefore abortion is murder because it deliberately ends that life.

2. A fetus is just a few scraps of tissue that do not constitute a human life, therefore abortion is not the taking of a human life, therefore it shouldn't really matter how common it is.

Which means that Jane's approach of "safe, legal, and rare" doesn't make a lot of sense. By saying abortion should be safe and legal, Jane is apparently arguing position 2 -- we should be able to kill fetuses because they don't constitute human lives. By saying they should be rare, Jane is apparently acknowledging position 1. I just don't understand how these two positions can be reconciled.

That's also why I don't understand why pro-lifers sometimes carve out exceptions for rape or incest. Look, the issue is whether a fetus is a human life and whether you're murdering it by having an abortion. If you think that's the case, it shouldn't really matter how the fetus came into being.

Like I say, I am uncomfortably agnostic on this because I can't make up my mind which position is correct. Since abortions are legal and they happen all the time, I try to convince myself that I believe position 2 and that I'm okay with the whole thing. But there's a part of me that deeply fears that position 1 is correct, and that people like O'Scully essentially want to make murder legal.

DRB, one can make a reasonable argument that no citizen can have their body hijacked against their will. The fact that citizen x will die without a new kidney does not mean that citizen y can be forced to provide it. Similarly, the fact that fetus x cannot survive without citizen x's uterus does not mean that citizen x can be prohibited from withdrawing it's use. The question then becomes, did citizen x once lend consent to the use of the uterus, by knowingly and willingly engaging in behavior which she knew might result in the creation of a fetus? In the case of rape and incest, there was no informed consent to engage in activity which ran the risk of creating a fetus, and thus there was never any consent regarding the use of a uterus.

Mind you, I oppose most restrictions on abortiuon, simply because I don't think the state is well suited to regulate it fairly and effectively. I can see, however, the difference between aborting a fetus which was created via voluntary sexual activity, and aborting a fetus which was created via coerced sexual activity.

DRB, my position is that a fetus becomes a human being sometime in time between conception and birth. I am relatively untroubled by things like the morning after pill, but would also be comfortable if late-term abortions were treated as infanticide.

It's the stuff in the middle where things get sticky, and where I think "safe, legal and rare" comes in. I don't think a complete ban on all abortions is workable, but I don't think it should be wide open either and certainly should not be encouraged.

John Stiles,

We (society, a/k/a the state) already made the decision that the state has an interest in providing child support for those who cannot afford it themselves. E.g., WIC support, welfare rules, etc. So, if given the choice of who should support the child, the state or the father, the answer comes down that the father should have the responsibility of supporting the child. That's why, when a woman receives state monies for child support and there is no support coming from the father, the state goes after the father for child support.

So, child support is not a private personal legal decision. Maybe it should be (that's a different discussion), but it's not.

DRB - Let me try to express how someone who believes "A fetus is a human life and therefore abortion is murder because it deliberately ends that life" can still "support" abortion in cases of rape or incest. While we all say it's inappropriate to count costs when speaking in terms of human life, we do it all the time. Our cars and roads are NOT as safe as they could be because we are unwilling to pay the price maximum safety would require. The same is true in the abortion debate. The cost of forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy caused by rape to term -- wouldn't she relive the rape every time the baby moved within her womb? -- is seen by many to justify the loss of human life an abortion would require. I'm not saying I agree with this position, but it's on this basis that person who views abortion as taking human life can still allow for conditions that would permit abortions. It's simply a cost/benefit analysis.

DRB: There could be a continuum from "Isn't" to "Is" a human life. A pregnancy goes through a bunch of stages - fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, fetus, viable fetus, baby. It is perfectly reasonable to claim that, say, the first two stage aren't life, and thus shouldn't be protected, the 34d and 4th are life, but not yet fully human, and so should receive some protection (the infamous rape and health carve-outs, for example), or alternatively at least respect(safe, legal, rare) and that in the last two it is human, and abortion is only moral to save the life of the mother.

My personal stance is that abortion is moral before the fetus has a set of characteristics including mental function, immoral afterwords. There is a transition time when the fetus is partly there. My personal stance is something like "legal" before 12-14 weeks, rare(ie, only for life, health, incest, and rape) up to 24 weeks or so, and "illegal, except to save the life of the mother or twin" after that. I can see making the 'respect' call, like Jane does, at conception. I can also see the 'it is human' case. I just don't fully agree.

As for notification constraints, as a policy call I say 'no' on husband notification (when wifey is aborting, the presumption that the baby is the husbands is, at best, premature), but I don't see a constitutional bar to the alternative call. Parental notification is a big "yes" - I don't want medics performing appendectomies on kids or prescribing drugs to them, leave alone doing abortions, without parental CONSENT, leave alone notification. With the proper "Judge can make good cause exceptions" caveats for daddy's little punching bag.

Will,

I see where you're coming from but I'm afraid I view it as another red herring -- an attempt to recast the issue as something other than whether abortion is taking a human life or not.

I'm always very wary about arguments from analogy and especially on this issue. We're not talking about kidneys here.

If you do want to pursue the analogy route, I will simply point out that in your kidney analogy, citizen y would have to undergo an invasive surgical procedure to save citizen x's life. In the abortion scenario, citizen y would have to undergo an invasive surgical procedure to kill citizen x. These are very different situations and in no way analagous.

anony-mouse writes: This constitutes what single-digit percentage or fraction of a percentage of actual pregnancies? And thereafter, why is that tiny minority of possible cases a viable argument for broad policy making?

Depends on how you judge what constitutes taking every precaution. This paper states About three million pregnancies in the United States (48%) were unintended in 1994. Some 53% of these occurred among women who were using contraceptives. While they don't cite their source this article claims 51% of pregnancies occur while contraceptives are being used. While the figures differ (I am inclined to believe the first) they seem a pretty good fraction of the populace on which to base policy decisions. Additionally, there are many sites that will give failure rates for contraceptives both for typical and perfect use, just google "contraceptive failure rates."

If you don't understand in advance of having a position on abortion that conception creates a unique set of DNA and therefore produces something that can be uniquely identified for purposes of the argument, there isn't much intelligent discussion to be had thereafter.

Conception does create a unique set of DNA that is uniquely identifiable. However, that zygote is only recognizable as human by analyzing its DNA or by its potential. Hence the discussion of whether potential is a valid basis for labeling a zygote as a full human being and what consequences does that have? If you think the zygote deserves the full rights of a human being than artificial insemination is murder since it creates a large number of zygotes which are not implanted in the uterus. Some forms of oral contraceptives, as I mentioned before, also become illegal. If a prescription drug causes the womb to be inhospitable to a zygote, does a woman have to abstain from sex while taking it or will she be guilty of premeditated homicide?

DRB, I wish the issue of abortion really was that simple. Will Allen sums up part of why it's not. For further analysis read Judith Jarvis Thompson's "A Defense of Abortion."

Will Allen's argument for allowing abortion in the case of Rape or Incest is the very argument I believe is the most valid. I also believe that if all possible precautions are taken to prevent pregnancy then 'citizen x' has not lent consent of their uterus. This argument has flaws however, some of which were pointed out previously, such as the fact that removing the fetus from the womb is not a simple thing that allows the fetus to die on it's own.

I would like to say that I seem to have misrepresented myself. I actually feel that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned because it is not based in the constitution and sets a bad precedent. All the statements I have made have been aimed at the ethical issue of abortion, and not necessarily the policy side. Policy is allowed much more breathing room than ethics. Policy can state that the damage caused to the mother by forcing her to carry an unwanted child, the damage to the child caused by being unwanted, and the damage to society created by both justifies allowing abortion to be legal. I personally think that approach is lacking, but since when has policy truly been based on morality?

As a man who is incapable of bringing a fetus to term, I must object to the idea that the man should have NO choice and should still be forced to accept full responsibility. Any argument that the man voluntarily engaged in sex and so implicitly consented to pay child support also applies to the woman who implicitly consented to the natural consequence of having sex.

If women can have on-demand abortions without the consent of the father, than men should have the right to a "paper abortion" where they declare that they abandon all parental rights and responsiblities for the child. This puts men and women on a more equal footing. Alternately, if the woman can choose to have the child and force the man to take full responsibility, then the man should have the right to chose to have the child and force the mother to take full responsibility.

As a father of a daughter, I take full responsibility for my children. I chose to have them and I am raising them. They are minors and are generally considered incapable of informed consent. Granting exceptions in some cases (like abortion) undermines parental authority and brings to question the whole concept of children being unable to give consent. If a 13 year old girl can have an abortion (giving informed consent for a surgical procedure) why can she not make other decisions? Why have any parental authority/responsibility at all? Should my children be allowed to move out at any age? Should they be able to get credit cards? Sign contracts, etc..?

Ironically, a 13 year old girl who gets pregnant is demonstrating that she most likely has bad judgement to begin with. And this girl gets extra powers of consent? Odd...

EI

Sean E and rvman, I agree that whether position 1 or position 2 applies may be dependent on the stage of the pregnancy. Sorry I didn't make that clear in my original post.

I'm surprised few conservatives are looking at the Alito dissent as a negative rights-positive rights issue. Alito's argument is for a positive requirement that an adult individual divulge certain private information in her keeping.

I would think negative-rights enthusiasts would find that more upsetting.

In Demon Haunted World Carl Sagan argued that a fetus becomes a human once it has human brain waves, the thinking being that if you're legally dead when the brain stops, then you might as well be legally alive when it starts. Typically that happens between 4 and 5 months into pregnancy, meaning that to my mind anything in the first trimester isn't even getting rid of a human being.

It gets trickier later on, but for purely practical reasons I'm okay with fairly unrestricted abortion until the end of the second trimester.

DRB - there's position 1.5, which is that the fetus is (legally) something not quite fully human, and therefore less deserving of protection than a child, but more deserving of protection than an unfertilized ovum, or a vermiform appendix.

I suspect that most Americans hold a position closer to that one than to either your position 1 or position 2.

One thing I think that gets lost in all these questions about 'male responsibility', or 'female resonsibilty' for that matter, is the complete revolution that has occurred in the past 30 years or so concerning when it comes into existence and why. In 1973, just to pick a convenient date to start, all these rights and duties only came into existence when a marriage occurred, now they come into existence at a conception.

If you had told someone about 100 years ago hw would have said something like 'no you're kidding, really'. Then the right to child support, which used to be called alimony, only came into existence when two people swore a solemn vow before God and man to each other (and actually to God and society too) to explicitly shoulder these burdens.

Nowadays, when you read a newspaper story about suing for child support from the biological father, or a biological father suing for custody, it's really weird that it is always sort of spoken about as if this is the way it always worked, while it has only started working this way quite recently.

If we went back to the old way, these issues would mostly disappear.

Anthony,

I agree that most people, including myself, try to skate between position 1 and position 2 because we're not comfortable with either one. Therefore I believe you're entirely correct that most Americans try to find some "position 1.5" middle ground. Why can't we all just meet in the middle and get along, right?

I just don't think that, thought through correctly, the middle ground really exists. It's only sloppy thinking and a fear of addressing the issue honestly that leads to position 1.5. The way I'd characterize that position is that it says having a fetus is kind of like having a pet -- you shouldn't be cruel to it and you should respect it, but at the same time you can have it put down if you think it's necessary.

What utter balderdash.

That's also why I don't understand why pro-lifers sometimes carve out exceptions for rape or incest. Look, the issue is whether a fetus is a human life and whether you're murdering it by having an abortion. If you think that's the case, it shouldn't really matter how the fetus came into being.

I can think of at least two reasons for that:

1) Some pro-lifers (not all) approach it from the perspective of “if you chose to have sex, then you assume the risk of a pregnancy” and in a case in which a woman was raped or a girl was the victim of incest, they didn’t have the choice to avoid those consequences. Libertarians for Life I believe has adopted a similar position in that they base their rights-based opposition to abortion.

2) Others (I tend to think that this rationale for the majority of pro-lifers who make the rape and incest exception) agreed to it as a necessary political compromise. Abortions for the case of rape and incest tend to be the exception and forbidding them makes many people uncomfortable and is considered a de facto “extremist” position. On the other hand, polls have shown that people are less likely to oppose restricting abortions being used for birth control purposes (something like 80 plus percent of abortions) and it makes sense to put efforts into the latter group which has less political opposition.

No, DRB, I'm perfectly willing to concede that killing a fetus is killing a form of human life, no matter how the fetus was created. I'm saying that there is a difference between killing a form of human life which resides in a womb due to voluntary sexual activity which the uterus' owner knew might result in said fetus, and killing a form of human life which resides in a womb due to sexual activity that the womb's owner did not consent to.

But isn't it a basic tenet that all killing of innocent human life is wrong? Not for me. I have no doubt that there were residents of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki who were entirely innocent of what the Japanese Empire did, and yet I think the wholesale incineration of the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as hideous as it was, was a morally defensible action. I also can understand the argument that the forcible hijacking of a womb by a third party renders the killing of a resultant innocent fetus within that womb a morally defensible action, because to say otherwise is to support conditions in which people do not have to lend consent to the use of their bodies.

DRB -

Will Allen, above, expresses a logically consistent position 1.5. What Allen leaves out is implied consent - a woman, by continuing to carry the baby to a certain point, gives consent by implication to the fetus being parasitic on her body for a period of time.

The combination of ideas does not mandate any specific sort of cutoff, though it's rather harder to make a case for allowing abortion after viability than before it, and it's rather hard to refuse to permit abortion soon after the pregnancy is discovered in cases of non-consensual sex. That's a lot of room in-between in which to settle a policy.

Thorley, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think some people do take an almost vindictive policy toward sex of "you play, you pay." The flipside of that is that a victim of rape or incest didn't want to "play" and therefore shouldn't have to "pay" by having a child.

But again, I think that's a red herring -- it means the abortion debate for these people is just a stand-in for a debate on recreational sex.

I also agree that plenty of people support the "rape or incest" clause based on political expediency. But I guess I'm not coming from the viewpoint of what is politically expedient -- I'm interested in what is genuinely the right thing to do.

Will -- again, I can understand where you're coming from, I just don't agree. If you accept that a fetus is a form of human life (I'm not saying I do), then I absolutely cannot fathom how following up a rape with a murder is the proper course of action.

And I can't put civilian deaths during a time of war on the same moral plane as killing a child because his father was a rapist.

DRB, it all depends on whether you think it allowable, in any sense at all, to have a person's body hijacked agaginst their will. The fetus isn't being killed because the father is a rapist. The fetus is being killed because the woman did not consent to anything which might place a fetus in the womb. In other words, a rapist who conceives with a woman in non-coercive circumstances, while conceiving with another woman through rape, has helped create two fetuses with different expectations of what constitutes moral treatment. The father is the same, but what is different is what the mothers consented to, in terms of the use of their bodies.

Hm. So, a 14 yr old girl, whose bad judgment should bar her from the abortion decision-making process, should, instead, be forced to turn to her parents for consent. (What if the 14 yr old is the child of a single mother who bore her first offspring at 14? Would her decision making process be more nuanced than our current 14 yr old?) Her parents, then, may or may not grant permission for the abortion. If they do not consent to the abortion, what happens then? The 14 yr old then gets to use her bad judgment to make childrearing decisions? What if the pregnancy was caused by paternal incest? The 14 yr old should be forced to get parental consent then as well?

As for father's rights, I agree that female hoarding of the decisionmaking power can be unfair. But I don't feel as sorry for men as others here seem to be. Does it not occur to men that having sex with a woman, even if she's competently using contraceptive, might result in lifetime support of a child? Women don't get to divorce themselves of the responsibility of raising a child, but men should be allowed to just because they're excluded from the abortion decision? Doesn't this absolve men of the consequences of their pre-sex decision making? If you're worried about being left out of the abortion decision-making, then double up on your condoms and don't trust any woman who says she's on the pill. In fact, don't trust the pill itself.

Will, definitely understand where you're coming from. But related to my point on analogies, let's try not to let rhetoric obscure what we're trying to talk about. I'm not interested in whether it is allowable, in any sense at all, to have a person's body "hijacked" against their will. I don't even know what it means for a person to have their body "hijacked." I thought hijacking was something that happened to airplanes. I'm talking about intercourse and pregnancy -- I'm not sure what you're talking about.

This is of course one of the big problems with the abortion debate that I was talking about in my original post. Very few people are comfortable just honestly talking about the situation. Instead the debate devolves into analogies and inflammatory rhetoric that obscure the topic under discussion.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all stop talking about kidneys, and Hiroshima, and hijacking, and parasites, and how having your house broken into is a natural consequence of owning a house? Instead let's talk about the topic at hand: intercourse, pregnancy, fetuses, and abortion.

Well, DRB, you may not be interested in talking about people being forced to have their bodies put to purposes that they have not given consent to in any manner. I am. Perhaps that's where our differences lie.

Belle,

Does it not occur to men that having sex with a woman, even if she's competently using contraceptive, might result in lifetime support of a child? Women don't get to divorce themselves of the responsibility of raising a child, but men should be allowed to just because they're excluded from the abortion decision?

The whole point is that women can get out post-intercourse, while men can't. Besides abortion there's adoption, and also (in several states) legalized anonymous abandonment. No woman in the US can be compelled to support her coming baby just because she's currently pregnant.

Will, I'm perfectly happy to talk about that. But let's not use rhetoric. What you mean to say is: you want to talk about women having to be pregnant even though they don't want to be pregnant. Sounds great. Let's talk about it. My question for you: granted that they don't want to be pregnant, is it all right for them to kill another human being in order to avoid being pregnant?

So let's talk about that. Let's not talk about hijacking, and kidneys, and Hiroshima, 'kay?

The wife should have to tell the husband she's getting an abortion, a fortiori because maybe he's not the father.

Now you are misrepresenting my views, DRB. I was not referencing women having to be pregnant even though they don't want to be pregnant. This happens quite frequently with people who engage in consensual sex. I was referencing women who have to be pregnent despite the fact that they did not consent to any behavior which results in pregnancy. A person who consents to the risk of pregnancy can be legitimately compelled to leave the fetus, or human life, which results undisturbed in her uterus. A person who did not give such consent cannot be legitimately compelled to leave the human life undisturbed in her uterus, and thus can legitimately kill the human life. To dispute this is to endorse slavery.

There are no circumstances in which I will endorse slavery. None. There are circumstances in which I will endorse the killing of innocent human life.

Will,

"To dispute this is to endorse slavery."

I entirely reject this. But again, the conversation descends into rhetoric. Now, instead of hijacking, you're talking about slavery.

"There are no circumstances in which I will endorse slavery. None. There are circumstances in which I will endorse the killing of innocent human life."

Uh-huh. So if given a choice between condemning a hundred innocent people to death or having those hundred people live their lives as slaves, you would choose to execute them? Sure you would.

I linked here from a Christian blog (forgot which one). By way of self-disclosure, I am very much pro-life, anti-abortion... pick your label. That being said, what a pleasant surprise to find a rational discussion of this issue. I wasn't sure such a thing was possible anymore. I salute Jane and all other pro-choicers in this discussion for their willingness to engage the issue without hiding behind obfuscations and sleight of hand. (And thankfully the pro-lifers here seem to behaving themselves as well)

What a breath of fresh air reading this has been.

I do have a couple of questions in response to a comment above about "you play you pay" ("abortion for these people is just a stand-in for a debate on recreational sex"). I do not equate the abortion issue with recreational sex. But the two topics are most assuredly related. How many abortions are for convenience? Where did the idea of consequence-free sex come from?

And is this a valid progression:
Women are (should be) equal to men.
Men can have conseqence-free sex.
Women should be able to as well.
Therefore abortion on demand is required.

Bryan K. Mills,

And is this a valid progression:
Women are (should be) equal to men.
Men can have consequence-free sex.
Women should be able to as well.
Therefore abortion on demand is required.

It doesn't work for me. First, because men can't have guaranteed "consequence-free sex." The present state of law is that men can have a hell of a lot of "consequences" if a woman they've impregnated decides to "keep the baby."

And it isn't and never has been about "equality." Every thing that has been done in the last century-plus in the name of "reproductive rights" has been to expand the reproductive options of women. I don't think anyone could so much as name the reproductive rights of men (I suppose they include not being forcibly sterilized, but is there anything else?)

No DRB, you are merely misrepresenting me again. Why do you insist on this? It is entirely false to say that this statement...

"There are no circumstances in which I will endorse slavery. None. There are circumstances in which I will endorse the killing of innocent human life."

...is synonymous with this statement...

"...if given a choice between condemning a hundred innocent people to death or having those hundred people live their lives as slaves, you would choose to execute them..."

...unless one accepts the premise, which is entirely absurd. The only circumstance under which I would make such a "choice" is if I was being physically coerced to do so, in which case it is not I who is the moral actor exercising a choice.

DRB, to read you complain about others' use of rhetoric (when did that become a perjorative, by the way?), while you blatantly misrepresent what others have written, is just a little much. Please reconsider you style of rhetoric.

Finally, in what way is it inaccurate to state that a non-criminal person forced to labor without pay, and with no choice, under penalty of law, is, in fact, a slave?

Excuse me for jumping in on this a little late in the game, but in reviewing the thread a few thoughts occur to me. First, reasoning by analogy can be a useful device, both pedagogically and epistemologically. A reductio ad absurdum argument is a kind of argument by analogy, and those can be quite instructive. Care must be taken, however, to make the analogies relevant, and to make sure that the discussion doesn’t devolve into an argument strictly about the analogy.

Having said that, the “slavery vs. death” position seems to me to be off-mark. First of all, gestation periods for humans being what they are, at most we’re talking about something like indentured servitude. In addition, carrying a child to term involves some serious inconvenience; particularly in the final months, but it does not result in the loss of freedom implied by the term “slavery”.

And while we’re speaking of analogies, the “would you rather kill a 100 people or condemn them to slavery” is less absurd than Will Allen makes it out to be. In the Second World War Allied commanders faced the moral quandary of whether to bomb forced labor camps. W.A.’s position seems to lead to the conclusion that the morally correct choice would be bomb the camps with the intent of killing as many inmates as possible, in order to save them from slavery.

As for the “hijacking” argument (And is it really necessary to say “hijacking against your will? Isn’t the “against your will” part implied by “hijacking”?), the hijacking here was done by the rapist, and for that the law prescribes punishment. We still haven’t heard a moral argument that justifies the death penalty for the child, who has done nothing.

I'd like to follow up on Will Allen's argument (though I think I take it farther than he does). I belive—or at least, I'm perfectly happy to stipulate—that the fetus is human and deserves all the respect due a human being. However, I don't think you can (legally or morally) require one human being to accept total responsibility for another. I'm skeptical that a woman would be morally required to provide her womb to a fetus and support its life, subordinating her life to its; I'm firmly convinced that no legal system can legitimately require a woman to subordinate her life to that of the fetus. So I think we have to allow abortions, at least for the first few months (if the woman's carried it for seven months, I think you can say she's accepted carrying it for the last two—or it's probably viable and should be birthed, rather than aborted).

Of course, there's the response that the woman accepted responsibility for the baby by having sex; but first, this still doesn't apply to rape/incest, becuase the woman clearly did not consent (this is what Will Allen is trying to get at, DRB). Second, I don't think it follows—if the woman was not intending to get pregnant, was she accepting responsibility for the baby? What if she was using contraception and just got unlucky? You can make an argument that she tacitly consented, but I don't buy it. And besides, if you grant the rape/incest exception, do we really want to create a strong legal incentive for women to make false rape claims ("if I say I was raped, I can get an abortion")?

And either way, if you allow abortions for women who have been using contraception, an abortion ban becomes completely unenforceable. I won't say this is the final word on the topic—even if it were good enough, which it's not, I have no doubt there would be many words coming after it. But I think it's a pretty strong argument that the pro-life has to deal with, and hasn't effectively.

"Perhaps one of these days, you will give evidence that you understand the difference between something occuring naturally, and a human inducing it. As far as I can recall, you manage to vanish into the woodwork every time someone raises that objection to your reasoning on that line. Let me state it this way: by your own reckoning, since you could naturally die of heart failure, it is practically indistinguishable if I put a bullet through your heart."

My pointing out how very, very common it is for fertilized eggs to not implant or to implant unsuccessfully is brought up in response to those who speak of how valuable this "life" is to God from that moment of fertilization. If he holds it in that high a level of esteem then why end so very many of them? Surely the God who intervenes in our lives as often as these believers think he does could have done a better job of designing our bodies so this wouldn't happen.

J.L., to be unwilling to endorse an action under any circumstances is not synonymous with saying that one is willing to take any action to prevent what one is to willing to endorse. A decision to forgo action A, which would end action B, is not always an endorsement of action B. The analogy does not hold. The analogy is also without basis in that the concentration camp inmates have not communicated their preference for death as opposed to slavery, whereas the raped woman seeking an abortion has communicated her unwillingness to be forced against her will, first to conceive, and then to carry to term.

Jadagul, to engage in behavior x, knowing that outcome y is a possibility, despite what precautions are taken to prevent outcome y, is to tacity accept y as possibility, and thus makes the individual responsible for outcome y. Now, as a matter of practicality, I think you have a point, and thus I would not favor most restrictions on abortions, especially in the first few months.

Finally, given that childbirth is not yet a risk-free proposition, and, in fact, can still result in quite unforseen death for the mother (it happened to an acquaintance of mine just last year), I would not so quickly assert that being forced to carry a pregnancy to term has only temporary consequences. Thus, the slavery description is not nearly as hyperbolic a term as has been argued here.

"This is the basic issue. Is it the gov't's job to do this? it is ironic that conservatives, who usually take the libertarian approach to gov't, want the gov't to be all powerful in this area."

No, Ivan. There is a difference because the government is responsible for the safety of its citizens. And when some people decide that it's perfectly legal to murder other citizens without recourse and without consequences, it should be the government who steps in to stop it.

Will Allen – Apparently your defense of the “Death of innocents – perhaps. Slavery – never!” position rests on an assertion that your “endorsement” is meaningless. Well, if that’s the way you want it, ok.

As for the “statement of willingness”, the point regarding the labor camp victims is close to fair, although they have also expressed to the Allied Generals no desire to live in slavery. And if the notion is that one can endorse killing innocents but never endorse slavery, in the absence of any direct communication with the labor camp inmates, what other decision are we to make but to bomb and kill? Except, of course, that you insist that your endorsement has no practical meaning.

But then we arrive back at the sticking point. You imply that, if the camp inmates were able to communicate a desire to die, killing them would be dandy. But the abortion case is not analogous to the slavery/death line of reasoning, because the mother is not communicating her willingness to die to avoid indentured servitude. She is communicating her willingness to kill someone else (the baby), who is the instrumentality of her servitude, but made no choice to be involved and is, hence, innocent. So, if we stipulate that the fetus is a human being, the question is whether a person has the moral right to kill another human being who is the instrumentality of their significant inconvenience (again, calling it slavery or even servitude is vastly overstating a mother’s loss of freedom during pregnancy), but who had no say in that inconvenience, and is not capable of making a decision or taking any action to end it.

I don’t think that an honest assessment of this question could lead to any answer other than no; a person does not have that moral right. So we’re back to the age old question: Is our stipulation of the fetus’ humanity correct?

And, the attempt to frame the moral question in terms of “consent”, “slavery” and “hijacking” falls apart.

As an aside, the risk of a mother’s dying in childbirth is tiny, and there are also health risks in having an abortion, riding in a car and walking across the street. Let’s not become so enamored of the goal of our argument that we start talking nonsense. Are you really making the argument that people have the moral right to kill innocent humans in order to avoid the level of risk associated with childbirth?

Jl, go tell my acquaintance that what she endured was an inconvienience. Ooops, can't do that. She's dead. Let's not be so enamored of our goal that one engages in the fatuity of equating the risk endured when one willingly crosses the street with being forced endure the risk of carrying to term a human being which was the outcome of a coerced sexual act. They are not the same, and to equate the two is nothing less than pathetic. When people stop dying of childbirth, then your position will have validity. Until then, yes a woman has the legitimate right to kill the human beings which have taken residence within their own bodies as the result of coercion.

Finally, as to your second paragraph, gee, I dunno, maybe an invasion could be launched, thereby resulting in the libertion of the camp?

Will Allen

Does the fact that you know someone who died in an uncommon way make it more common? Or freighted with greater moral significance? And notice that I didn’t say that no one ever died in child birth. I said it was rare. So the first part of your commentary was unenlightening, and doubtless intended as an insult. Hence, I will ignore it from here on.

You are talking here about accepting risks, specifically the risk of dying. There is a pretty good way of analytically dealing with those risks. In 1980 Ron Howard introduced the idea of the micromort, which is defined as a one in a million chance of dying. The chance of dying in childbirth in Europe is, according to UNICEF, about 1 in 7,400, which is an average of about 135 micromorts. Daphne Koller at Stanford estimated the average value of a micromort in 1980 at about $20. Adjusting for inflation (using the CPI) that is about $45.85 in 2004. This suggests that, on average, women would pay $6,190 in 2004 dollars to completely avoid the probability of death from childbirth. Of course, in performing an actual analysis you would have to net out the probability of dying from an abortion, which is also non-zero, but for now, let’s ignore it. So, if, as you implied, woman will get abortions in order to avoid the probability of dying in childbirth, they are getting abortions to avoid an average cost of $6,190.

Of course, for some women the probability of dying in childbirth is much higher (just as for some it is lower). That, in fact, is why nearly every proposed restriction on abortion includes a “life of the mother” exception.

I could also, of course, perform the same analysis for crossing the street and make a comparison, and then, ‘Voila! I would have done the—what? Fatuous? Pathetic? By the way, there is a library of just this type of fatuous, pathetic analysis done on life and death decisions. Just Google “micromort” to get a start on it.

Now, to your assertion – “…a woman has the legitimate right to kill the human beings which have taken residence within their own bodies as the result of coercion”, we’re quite nearly back to where we started. You assert a legitimate (which I take to mean moral) right to kill an innocent human being who is the unwitting instrumentality of a third person’s coercion in order to avoid a 9-month period of significant disadvantage (although far different from servitude or slavery) and a risk valued, on average, at $6,190.

Or you can rest your support for abortion rights on an assertion that the fetus is not a human being.

Those who believe that the government has no right getting involved in regulating these decisions are on much stronger ground with the latter argument, as the former right can hardly be claimed to be either fundamental or transparent.

Regarding “…gee, I dunno, maybe an invasion could be launched, thereby resulting in the libertion of the camp?” you’ve lost me completely.

Yes, JL, I consider it morally significant that you would force someone to risk death, rather than have sovereignity over their body, and I find it morally bankrupt that you labeled a process that resulted in someone's death an inconvienience. If that someone took that risk of their own volition, then whether you or I consider it a mere inconvienience is of little signifigance. Once you coerce someone into that risk, then your or my opinion of whether it is a mere inconvienience or something more significant, pales in importance compared to what the individual being made to bear the risk believes. "Inconvienience", much like "fairness", is a term best left out of public policy considerations, given that it is a value entirely dependent on the vantage point of the observer.

I'm glad that Daphne Koller gets paid to make various estimations. I fail to see what authority those estimations carry. You may value your Grandmother's wedding ring at one million dollars, while Daphne Kollar estimates it at one thousand dollars. So what? Market values are aggregates, and do not speak to a single individual's estimate of value.

If I've lost you compeltely, perhaps it is better if the dialogue ends.

I find it logically astonishing that you find coercing someone to cross the street and coercing someone to play Russian roulette equally morally reprehensible because both involve a non-zero probability of death. Equally preposterous is the notion that we can ignore fairness, inconvenience and, apparently, risk in making public policy decisions.

In the end, though, I have to agree with you. The discussion may as well end, as there is really nothing left to defend of your original position. You’re left only with ‘Only the pregnant women can put a value on the level of inconvenience she endures, which must be high enough to warrant killing an innocent third party, because she did it. So abortion is morally justified by the fact that it is done.’ I can’t think of a single abomination that can’t be justified by your logic. Congratulations.

I'l simply note that you have once again lied regarding my position, which is somewhat ironic coming from a person who has complained about the use of rhetoric. You assert that my position is:

"Only the pregnant women can put a value on the level of inconvenience she endures, which must be high enough to warrant killing an innocent third party...."

...which ignores, once again the element of consent as to how one became pregnant. To acccuratly represent my position, instead of lying about it (again, why is it you think lying is an effective form of rhetoric?) one would have to say, "Only the woman who becomes pregnant via coercive sex can put a value on the level of inconvienience she endures, thus only such she can determine whether killing an innocent third party that has taken residence within her body against her will is morally justified. A woman who has become pregnant via consensual sex has given tacit consent to the risk or inconvienience of pregnancy, and she cannot later withdraw that consent, thus she has forgone the moral right to solely determine the how the innocent third party will be treated."

You seem to prefer lying, however, as it appears to make you feel better. Congratulations.

WA – For goodness sake, calm down! I didn’t lie, and I didn’t complain about the use of rhetoric. I assume that you are simply mistaken about this last accusation. I suspect that you are actually thinking of another poster. And please notice that I make this assumption rather than accuse you of lying.

As to my supposed lie, when I wrote “THE pregnant women” rather than simply “pregnant women” I was referring to the class or subset of pregnant women that constituted the subject of our entire conversation. That is, women who have become pregnant through coercion. So I did not lie. Rather, you chose to ignore the most natural interpretation of what I wrote, given the context of the discussion.

Upon reviewing the sentence in question, however, I see that my grammar was poor. For that I apologize. However, the specifics of your response show that you were not thrown by my use of a plural and a singular pronoun. I imagine that you just didn’t read what I wrote carefully, or you chose, probably out of anger, to interpret what I wrote in a way that would allow you accuse me of lying.

So, with pronoun/noun disagreement corrected, my interpretation of your position appears to agree entirely with your restatement, which I still believe to be morally untenable. Perhaps this is clearer when it is universalized (think Immanuel Kant and the categorical imperative), as in “Only the party who has been the victim of coercion can put a value on the level of inconvenience to be endured as a result of that coercion. However, this value must be high enough to warrant killing an innocent third party, if the coerced party commits the killing. So, in circumstances involving any coercion (“any” coercion because, from your argument, it is impossible for anyone other than the coerced party to put a value on it), a killing of innocents is morally justified by the fact that it is has been committed. Such a killing is, therefore, morally self-justifying.”

You might argue that a woman who becomes pregnant through a rape is in a completely different moral class from anyone else, and that the position you espouse, therefore, cannot be universalized. This is dangerous territory, because you would be required to come up with a basis for a unique moral class for such women; a basis that does not rely upon either the level or, I think, even the nature of the deprivation visited upon them. You have already said that we can place no value on the level of inconvenience, and it’s going to be difficult to make an argument from the nature of the inconvenience without reference to its costs.

But, for your position to hold up to careful scrutiny you have to do something, because we live with various types of coercion throughout our daily lives. So where is the moral restriction that keeps us from killing, willy-nilly, anyone who gets in our way? That’s why I said that the argument in support of women pregnant as a result of rape being allowed to get abortions is much easier to make if start by asserting that the fetus is not a human being. Once you stipulate that it is human and that humans have rights, the argument becomes quite tricky. And once you toss out any way of comparing levels of inconvenience or deprivation, you’re really in trouble, and that’s no lie!

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