Hey Josh, it seems your argument hinges on there being a difference between action vs. inaction. I don't think that's true for parents. If you don't feed your kids and they die, you'd go to jail. Same if they get sick and you don't give them medical care. Ultimately, you have a responsibility to act.
I'm pro-choice, and believe a fetus isn't yet a person so doesn't deserve all the protections of personhood. You seem to believe it does given it's potential for human life.
Under your value system, wouldn't people be morally obligated to have as many children as possible? If a parent's inaction leading to a child's death is wrong, wouldn't their inaction depriving a potential person of their life also be wrong?
And wouldn't using contraceptives be wrong? Because you're taking an action that prevents a potential person's life?
I love the back-and-forth here! Excellent to hear the arguments of both sides from reasonable, calm people. However, I do notice that the last response is from Josh and it's more than a month ago. Did Cloe ever respond again?
These scenarios have made me curious how Josh and Chloe would feel about a mother just refusing to help care for the fetus she's growing.
I'm currently pregnant (no plans to terminate!) and have been learning about all the things you should avoid for your baby's health from alcohol to Advil to certain foods and even exercises.
I'm wondering if the middle ground of "refusing to help" would be to just carry on living like you're not pregnant? Personally, I think this would be worse than an abortion because of the defects it could cause to the child if it survived, BUT for the sake of the thought experiment, would a woman that continues to drink, smoke, use her retinol cream, do heavy lifting and eat sushi and so on not be in that "not helping, but not killing" middle ground? The child could survive and be fine, it could survive and be in a terrible state, or the pregnancy may terminate itself.
Great, respectful dialogue and well done to both sides. Regarding self-defence I think a stronger pro-choice argument would be, rather than appealing to the risk of death from childbirth (assumed to be considerably higher than the risk of death from abortion, though this has never actually been proven), to argue that one can use lethal force to defend oneself against normal pregnancy and childbirth (the same way one can use lethal force to resist other kinds of non-fatal attacks - notably rape). I think the critical distinction here has to be that you can only use lethal force against the aggressor himself, not someone that inadvertently brings you harm. I think most people would agree that a woman could use lethal force against someone that tried to forcibly inseminate her with a turkey baster. Or, perhaps more fantastically, release an airborne virus that would cause her to experience all of the symptoms of pregnancy (culminating in "giving birth" to a 7-pound tumour after 40 weeks). But going off on your spaceship analogy, she wouldn't have the right to kill someone that involuntarily spreads this pregnancy virus simply by breathing. This would hold true even if, at the end of the 40 weeks, the tumour would be ground up and used to save the life of the person that was spreading the virus (perhaps the tumour contains bone marrow of some sort that he needs). The woman normally wouldn't be obligated to use her body to help the man, but killing him wouldn't be a legitimate case of self-defence even if it would be the only way to avoid contracting the pregnancy virus and saving him.
Excellent dialogue. I especially appreciated your response to the silly assertion that 'we already know that outlawing or limiting abortions won't bring down the rate as much as education and contraceptives.'
I'm pro-choice, and believe a fetus isn't yet a person so doesn't deserve all the protections of personhood. You seem to believe it does given it's potential for human life.
Under your value system, wouldn't people be morally obligated to have as many children as possible? If a parent's inaction leading to a child's death is wrong, wouldn't their inaction depriving a potential person of their life also be wrong?
And wouldn't using contraceptives be wrong? Because you're taking an action that prevents a potential person's life?
I'm currently pregnant (no plans to terminate!) and have been learning about all the things you should avoid for your baby's health from alcohol to Advil to certain foods and even exercises.
I'm wondering if the middle ground of "refusing to help" would be to just carry on living like you're not pregnant? Personally, I think this would be worse than an abortion because of the defects it could cause to the child if it survived, BUT for the sake of the thought experiment, would a woman that continues to drink, smoke, use her retinol cream, do heavy lifting and eat sushi and so on not be in that "not helping, but not killing" middle ground? The child could survive and be fine, it could survive and be in a terrible state, or the pregnancy may terminate itself.
Thoughts?