the short version: I'm not really sure what to think because I can't come up with an internally consistent position about its morality. I doubt anyone else can either, so I don't think it should be legislated.
the even shorter version: I'm still pro-choice, but sometimes I'm uncomfortable about it.
- one reason I think abortion is wrong:
- It's wrong to kill babies. There is not much difference between a baby right after it's been born and a baby a month before it will be born.
- obvious rebuttal:
- This is really only an argument against third trimester abortions. You should still be okay with earlier ones.
- obvious rebuttal to rebuttal:
- Why is it okay to kill something that will be a baby really soon, when it's not okay to kill a baby?
- rebuttal to rebuttal to rebuttal:
- It's not a baby right now. that's all that's relevant. If it's not conscious and can't live on its own it doesn't have human rights yet. If you believe otherwise, you reach some deeply unintuitive conclusions. After all, if its not okay to kill something that will be a baby really soon, then it shouldn't be okay to kill something that will become something that will be a baby really soon. Is preventing an embryo from ever implanting on the wall of a uterus wrong? Does that embryo have rights? What about the egg and the sperm before they become an embryo?
- rebuttal to rebuttal to rebuttal to rebuttal:
- We consider other people who are not conscious and can't survive on their own to be human. What about terminally ill people in comas? They're basically only alive because a machine is feeding them or breathing for them, but we're not just allowed to pull the plug. We need prior consent. And these are people who will *never recover* from their conditions. Fetuses generally will recover by, you know, being born. If you believe that consciousness and viability are necessary to being human, why is there debate about end of life issues?
I also think it's important to remember that even if a fetus has rights, the mother does too. It seems like a lot of people forget about the mother when they're talking about abortion. This is why I really like the violinist thought experiment. To quote Judith Jarvis Thomson:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.
In other words, even if you think that fetus is a whole human being with all sorts of rights, those rights don't necessarily supersede your own right to autonomy over your own body. Why should you have to act as a life support machine to something that would die on its own?
This argument is most effective in cases of rape or if pregnancy puts your life at risk. Otherwise, you willingly took on the risk when you decided to have sex, so it's not like you'll die by doing it, so you can't back out now.
But that doesn't sit well with me. What if you used a condom or were on birth control? At a certain point, if you took reasonable precautions, I think you have a right to expect that you won't have to be pregnant. Besides, in the real world, do you want women to have to prove that they were raped or that they were using a condom that one time in order to have access to an abortion? that seems like a huge invasion of privacy.
It's complicated, so I end up judging each situation as it comes up and relying a lot on my own moral intuition. I think this is basically the correct way to go about things, so I want to reserve the right for pregnant women to do the same. This makes me pro-choice.
2 comments:
Well put. (Just because I like adding my two cents) I think personally that abortion should not be considered/used as a form of birth control. I'm not sure I personally could have an abortion, but I've never been in a position to have to make that decision so I don't know. As far as other people go, though, I think every woman should have the opportunity to make her own decision. After all, it's her body. I think for me personally I'm almost pro-life, but for the rest of the world, I'm pro-choice.
yeah, I agree with you. I like to think that most people wouldn't even consider using abortion as a form of birth control in the first place, though. I think the bigger point is, it shouldn't be an easy decision to decide to go through with one. But how can you enforce that? don't know.
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