abortion should be legal

Okay I also responded on a doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BqcVxJJy8MyriGXjOJaRBuaFRDomEgcvdbVw6_VyqaQ/edit?usp=sharing

My response got big. I'll just send you the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oL_UynPUIABEF8gxRRvQllPxBRlyo4vKET6-QbwSJfg/edit

4. Who should be punished should abortion be made illegal.

The majority of the pro-life movement, despite what the extremely pro-abortion media wants everyone to believe, is NOT in favor of punishing women for seeking abortions. Ignore your average republican MAGA conservative fascist. He doesn't speak for the whole movement. We believe that women are secondary victims of the abortion industry - they have been told by society that an unborn child has no more value than some random clump of cells, is not human and is not alive. We endorse elective abortion (abortion when a woman's life is not in danger) and call it women's healthcare, we call it empowerment, we pressure women into getting abortions and we tell them they cannot succeed in life unless they kill their child. Women have been coerced by the abortion industry and are absolutely not to blame for an abortion.

So then who do we punish for abortion? I think we should punish elective abortion providers. This may include doctors where there is a situation where an abortion has been performed on a healthy mother with a healthy baby, but I also think doctors need to be given the benefit of the doubt in some circumstances, or at least clear exceptions need to be stated in the law.

Thank you for voting for me! Also apologies for the very long response.

3. Abortion as "self-defence"

Premise 1: Killing the actual flu virus should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others.
Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%).
Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing the actual flu virus should be legal in all cases.

But what if there's a scenario where in order to kill the actual flu virus, I have to kill the person who is infected with it first? Let's say that I love to fish, and one day I go fishing in my boat on a lake. But let's say that I leave my boat unlocked, and so a young boy who is carrying the flu climbs aboard, and I don't notice him until I am far out on the lake. For the boy, the flu is asymptomatic, but I immediately begin to suffer extremely uncomfortable symptoms. I do some research and calculate that there is a 0.02% chance of death for me. Do I get to kill the boy?

2. The idea that banning abortion leads to forced birth/pregnancy/motherhood
If consent is then consent to pregnancy, pro-lifers aren't forcing women to get pregnant. That would be rape, which is a crime, and which I am strongly against. I don't care if you don't want children and I'm not interested in making you have any. If you don't want kids, get a vasectomy. I'm strongly in favor of making it easier for women to get tubal ligations. Sterilization methods, yes, do have about a 1% failure rate, but I still believe that killing your child isn't justified because you don't want them around.

Well, if you can only give consent to actions, and birth is an action, then, while consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, it can't be consent to birth! False. You have the right to consensual sex, but you don't have the right to kill somebody. Abortion does that. That kid's gotta come out of the uterus somehow, but being allowed to intentionally kill it and take it out is not a right. So until artificial wombs become more accessible, consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, is also consent to birth.

Pro-lifers aren't "forcing" women to give birth, we are banning access to abortion, so we are forcing them not to have an abortion. People make the assumption that pro-life = pro-birth. That's not true, I'm not against having your unborn child moved into an artificial womb, or someone else's body, I just don't think that you should be allowed to kill it. If we ban abortion, other things like birth will follow, but I'm not forcing you to have sex and so I'm not forcing you into that position.

I'm also going to respond to the aforementioned counter-arguments in one go considering 4 things.

1. The idea that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.
The pro-life movement does not think that consent to sex is consent to pregnancy because we want to punish people, especially women, for having sex, or because we dislike sex, or because we're a bunch of conservative christian fascists who want to control women's bodies. I'm an atheist and a woman and I think it is okay to like having sex! I believe everyone has the right to be educated on their fertility, on sexual consent, and the right to use methods of contraception/sterilization/birth control. I also believe that sex comes with risks and so you must be super careful who you have sex with.

According to the Turnaway Study, 31% of women who seek abortion do so for partner-related reasons. - fear that their partner won't be supportive or won't be in the picture. Do you think that it is okay for a man to have sex with a woman, get her pregnant, and then walk away from her? Because child support laws don't think so. Child support laws don't care if a man wore a condom or pulled out, or if sex isn't a crime, or if he wasn't ready to be a father. In the US, a man can face up to 2 years in prison for not paying child support. If a man can walk away from a pregnancy, why can't a woman? The pro-life movement appreciates that women don't get abortions for "funsies", and that they are genuinely seriously worried about the quality of their lives. I don't think that pregnancy is a "punishment" of sex, or simply a 9-month long "minor inconvenience" - it is incredibly taxing physically and physiologically and pregnant women deserve all the support that society can give. But if abandoning your child is wrong, then how can killing it be better?

I think that people hold the claim that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy because they misunderstand what it means to give consent. You can't give consent to effects, you can only give consent to actions. Sex is an action, pregnancy is the effect of one. I also think that it's important to note that when I say consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, I don't mean consent to sex is assuming the risk of pregnancy, I mean that when a woman has sex, she consents to becoming pregnant, and when a man has sex, he consents to her becoming pregnant, and so both are then responsible for their unborn child.

If I eat a slice of sugary, buttery chocolate cake with every meal for the next 6 months, chances are I'm going to gain weight. I can't say that I consented to eating cake, not gaining weight - weight gain is a foreseen outcome, a biological process that my body is programmed to do: gain fat. Similarly, pregnancy is a biological process that the female body is programmed to do. I can mitigate the outcome of this undesirable effect by exercising, or not eating cake, but if any of those solutions involve killing somebody, that's where anti-abortion/pro-life people have a problem. But what if I take Ozempic at the same time to prevent myself from gaining weight, but I still gain weight? Ozempic has a failure rate of about 15%. Do I still get to kill somebody as part of my solution because I don't like my outcome, even when I took caution not to cause it?

What if my partner also eats cake for the next 6 months, but he's one of those people everyone is jealous of because he has a super fast metabolism and so unhealthy food has zero effect on him, whether he takes Ozempic or not. In fact, what if he bakes all the cakes that he and I eat. Do I still get to kill somebody as part of my solution because my partner was not affected at all by eating cake and I was left with my undesirable outcome?

I get you. I understand that there's a lot of nonsense going around nowadays and this makes it difficult to trust scientists. However, we have known about fertilization (which is not unique to humans and occurs in most mammals, some fish, and a few reptiles) since the 1800s. Throughout the 19th century, research and experimentation showed the humanity of the human zygote/embryo, with Theodor Boveri discovering chromosomes, what essentially makes a species a species, in 1905. The first embryology textbook was written in 1945.
But even if we disregard science all of a sudden, and we look at it from a logical point of view, what is the point of fertilization? Shouldn't human beings just come to exist as a 40-week fetus if life does begin at birth (I'm assuming that you believe life begins at birth because you think abortion should be legal all the way up until birth, please correct me if I am wrong).
We can't exist as an "in-between species", that doesn't make any sense. It makes a lot of sense for us to either be or not be something. Think about it. Naturally, why would biology want us to transform into a different species at birth? Won't it be more efficient to just develop through stages but stay fundamentally as one thing? How is it possible that, 2 mins before birth, when you could see our face on an ultrasound, our mother could feel our movements, and we could already recognize our parents' voices that we were not human?

Banning abortion requires a punishment as all illegal activities do. How would you punish abortion?

->Here's a link to a science article explaining this written by a neither pro-life or pro-choice source. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/05/if-a-fetus-isnt-a-human-being-what-is-it/

Scientists can't even define what a woman is. I don't trust the experts when they easily can be wrong, I use common sense.

->So I would say that there would have to be a greater than 0.02% chance of death and a greater than 0.797% chance of severe maternal morbidity to call it self-defense.

It's a small chance, but can you name any other time when you are legally forced to endure a .8% chance of death or severe maternal morbidity that we all agree is acceptable for the government to force someone to do under punishment of legal prosecution?

-> If you consent to having sex, you consent to the possibility of becoming pregnant, even if you took contraception/birth control to prevent that.

You may believe this and I can understand this as well as the opposite belief, but this is not a universal belief.

->C-sections and vaginal births pose risks to the mother but so do abortions - however, we don't have enough conclusive evidence to prove that abortion is safer than childbirth.

C sections aren't legally forced upon risks. If you don't want a c section, then don't get one. Child birth isn't mandatory either and nobody thinks childbirth should be mandatory (in the even that there was no pregnancy to begin with). Child birthing and c sections are risky and possibly riskier than abortion, but they are risks where the person undergoing the risk consented to it. If abortion was mandatory, then that would be horrible.

Russian Roulette is more of a risk to your life than stating pregnant if you already were pregnant, but nobody is forcing you to play Russian Roulette, so the risk is consensual. If you are pregnant, then you are forced to stay pregnant, so the risk at that point is non-consensual once you become pregnant.

I disagree with you, but I did vote for you because I think you earned it.

On the human status of a human fetus:

Here's a link to a science article explaining this written by a neither pro-life or pro-choice source. https://evolutionnews.org/2022/05/if-a-fetus-isnt-a-human-being-what-is-it/
Ask chat gpt: "Is a human fetus a human being according to science" and it will tell you that according to science it is.
We can debate a human fetuses' moral value, its personhood, but science has a clear stance.

Abortion as self-defense:
According to the CDC, the maternal mortality rate was 20.1 in 2019. (Source: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103855). This means that out of 100,000 live births, 20.1 resulted in death for the pregnant woman, giving a 0.0201% chance of death. The rate of severe maternal morbidity, SMM, (severe, life-threatening pregnancy complications) was 79.7 out of 10,000, giving a 0.797% chance of SMM. (sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35900764/#:~:text=SMM%20rates%20increased%20from%2069.5,%2C%20%2D6.9%20to%200.6, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794738 ). So I would say that there would have to be a greater than 0.02% chance of death and a greater than 0.797% chance of severe maternal morbidity to call it self-defense.

Pro-lifers aren't "forcing" a woman to "save" a zygote. If you consent to having sex, you consent to the possibility of becoming pregnant, even if you took contraception/birth control to prevent that. We care about both mother and child, but recognize that sometimes abortion is necessary to save one. I'm not trying to disacknowledge that pregnancy and unborn child are intertwined: yes, sometimes we need to end a pregnancy to save a mother's life pre-viability (ectopic pregnancy). However, if there is a scenario where the unborn child and mother are both healthy and there is no significant risk to life of the mother, at the very least, the child should be allowed to live. C-sections and vaginal births pose risks to the mother but so do abortions - however, we don't have enough conclusive evidence to prove that abortion is safer than childbirth.

->But if the fetus is recognized as a valuable person whose life we are interested in protecting, then we should consider when to kill the fetus very very very seriously.

The fetus might be a human, but the woman certainly is.

What is the minimum risk you are willing to impose on a woman for her life in order to let her get an abortion? If a pregnancy no matter what you did produced a 45% chance of death for the person with the pregnancy, then should she be allowed to get an abortion (any man that gets pregnant just wants attention)?

->You're proposing that it be legal to kill somebody who doesn't even pose a significant enough threat to life because you don't believe in their moral value.

Well, what is the alternative? The alternative is imposing a minimum risk of death that you would force on a woman to save a zygote. That isn't pro life as much as it is pro zygote.

-> we recognize that it is pregnancy that is the aggressor which puts a mother's life at risk, not the unborn child, who is only a threat. Going back to the last premise of our revised argument:

If there is no pregnancy, then there is no fetus. The fetus and the pregnancy are a package deal.

->Even if pregnancy poses a risk of death, we can lower this risk of death without having to kill a fetus.

You can lower it; but you can't eliminate it.

-> In this scenario, we can end the pregnancy (kind of like killing the actual flu virus) without harming a fetus.

Only post viability pregnancies is this true for. Even then, it's possible that the risk of death is higher with a c section than the risk of death from abortion (cutting stomachs open isn't a safe thing to do).

But if the fetus is recognized as a valuable person whose life we are interested in protecting, then we should consider when to kill the fetus very very very seriously. If we believe that they are valuable, then we should treat non life-threatening pregnancy symptoms without trying to kill them! This argument is simply a personhood argument in disguise. You're proposing that it be legal to kill somebody who doesn't even pose a significant enough threat to life because you don't believe in their moral value. We should be debating the moral stance of a fetus to justify elective abortion instead.

And if we do value the life of the fetus, then we can recognize that we can work towards alleviating pregnancy symptoms that are non life-threatening without resorting to violent force against an innocent human person. If we separate pregnancy from fetus and apply threat vs aggressor, we recognize that it is pregnancy that is the aggressor which puts a mother's life at risk, not the unborn child, who is only a threat. Going back to the last premise of our revised argument:

Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing the actual flu virus should be legal in all cases.

Even if pregnancy poses a risk of death, we can lower this risk of death without having to kill a fetus. For example, pre-eclampsia is life-threatening to a mother, but the standard of care is birth, not abortion. In this scenario, we can end the pregnancy (kind of like killing the actual flu virus) without harming a fetus. Pregnancy isn't a disease or a virus which can be treated, it is a medical state.

->Yes, but don't doctors take an oath to do what is best for their patient?

Yes, but they also realize that many patients want kids and they respect the right of the patients to have kids even if there is a risk of death.

->A better argument would be:
Premise 1: Killing the actual flu virus should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others.
Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%).
Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing the actual flu virus should be legal in all cases.

Yes; like unironically; it is ok to kill the flu virus.

->But your parallel argument mistakes the source of death to be the fetus rather than pregnancy, and so you're proposing that we kill the fetus rather than treat pregnancy symptoms.

The fetus is often the source of death for the woman; as the fetus is the reason why the pregnancy exists.

->There's a difference between a threat and an aggressor: aggressors directly put people in danger, whilst threats put others in danger indirectly by proximity. Pregnancy adds complications and risks to the mother, but the fetus never directly causes harm.

The fetus does in fact directly causes the risk of death to the mother whether it's conscious or not.

->None of us decided that we were going to grow and develop in utero, this is just the biological process that occurs, decided by nature.

What is the relevance? My mother decided that the risk of death she endured by birthing me was worth it. Not every female should be expected to make the sacrifice for her pregnancy.

->Pregnancy can cause a host of side effects but the majority of these can be treated with non-violent means. For example, morning sickness can be treated using anti-nausea medication, and heartburn can be treated using antacids. The anti-abortion side supports the use of nonviolent means to treat pregnancy symptoms.

It is possible for a pregnancy to be a risk to the mother's life in a way that no existing medication can treat.

-> I'm not arguing pregnancy is a disease; I'm merely arguing it's a risk to the mother's life.

Ok great, glad we are on the same page!

-> If this was the case, why don't doctors prescribe abortion every time a woman is pregnant???
Some women want to have kids and have to produce a pregnancy to make that happen.

Yes, but don't doctors take an oath to do what is best for their patient? Doesn't that mean that they should advise their patient on what is the safest for them? If pregnancy does carry a risk, and you believe that even if that risk is small it is significant, shouldn't doctors advise abortion even in a wanted pregnancy?

-> Your revised argument:
Premise 1: Killing somebody who has been infected with the flu should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others.

(imagine that the person being infected with the flu is the fetus and the flu = pregnancy)

Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%).

Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing those infected with the flu should be legal in all cases, even when doctors can treat the flu with medication without killing the person who is infected.

This is not the same because the source of death isn't the person with the flu, it's the flu (plus the flu is contagious; pregnancy is not).

A better premise/conclusion argument would be:
Premise 1: Killing the actual flu virus should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others.

Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%).

Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing the actual flu virus should be legal in all cases.

You've said "This is not the same because the source of death isn't the person with the flu, it's the flu (plus the flu is contagious; pregnancy is not). " and then you've gone on to re-write my argument following your logic. But your parallel argument mistakes the source of death to be the fetus rather than pregnancy, and so you're proposing that we kill the fetus rather than treat pregnancy symptoms. But it is pregnancy symptoms that are life-threatening to the mother rather than the fetus. There's a difference between a threat and an aggressor: aggressors directly put people in danger, whilst threats put others in danger indirectly by proximity. Pregnancy adds complications and risks to the mother, but the fetus never directly causes harm.

This is why it is important to talk about culpability. While the presence of the unborn child gives rise to pregnancy symptoms, some of which can become life-threatening, the unborn child doesn't consciously intend these symptoms. It is more like pregnancy is a reaction to the presence of the child. None of us decided that we were going to grow and develop in utero, this is just the biological process that occurs, decided by nature.

Pregnancy can cause a host of side effects but the majority of these can be treated with non-violent means. For example, morning sickness can be treated using anti-nausea medication, and heartburn can be treated using antacids. The anti-abortion side supports the use of nonviolent means to treat pregnancy symptoms.

->From a logical viewpoint, how can pregnancy be a disease/serious medical ailment if women's bodies actively prepare for it (menstruation) and have an organ that does not serve any purpose to women but is built to serve someone else (a uterus). That doesn't add up.

I'm not arguing pregnancy is a disease; I'm merely arguing it's a risk to the mother's life.

-> If this was the case, why don't doctors prescribe abortion every time a woman is pregnant???

Some women want to have kids and have to produce a pregnancy to make that happen.

Your revised argument:
->Premise 1: Killing somebody who has been infected with the flu should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others. Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%). Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing those infected with the flu should be legal in all cases, even when doctors can treat the flu with medication without killing the person who is infected.

This is not the same because the source of death isn't the person with the flu, it's the flu (plus the flu is contagious; pregnancy is not). A better premise/conclusion argument would be:

->Premise 1: Killing the actual flu virus should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others. Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%). Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing the actual flu virus should be legal in all cases.

Sometimes the doctor can save you, other times they cannot. All a woman has to do is threaten to commit suicide if she isn't allowed an abortion and the pregnancy is a risk to her life that might actually be plausible. You are advocating leaving the decision to abort up to the woman and her doctor (the left wing position). The MAGA world wants to not let the woman or the doctor have any say; they want to ban it because they see killing a zygote as murder.

Okay. I am going to break down this argument based on the following 3 claims which I think it makes.

Pregnancy is a disease/serious medical ailment.

I certainly don't think pregnancy is a disease/serious medical ailment and I hope you do not, because that's extremely disrespectful to women. From a logical viewpoint, how can pregnancy be a disease/serious medical ailment if women's bodies actively prepare for it (menstruation) and have an organ that does not serve any purpose to women but is built to serve someone else (a uterus). That doesn't add up.

Everyone has the right to be treated for a disease/serious medical ailment, even if the risk of death is 0.0001%.

I think everyone can agree with this claim!

Everyone has the right to be treated for a disease/serious medical ailment, even if the risk of death is 0.0001%, even if the treatment involves killing an innocent third party.

This is where your argument begins to become slightly problematic. I am not trying to undermine the difficulties that pregnancy poses - it is incredibly physically and psychologically taxing on the body, and pregnant women deserve all the support and care that society can give during and after pregnancy. Even assuming that pregnancy is a serious medical ailment/disease, I disagree on abortion being the solution to every single pregnancy. If this was the case, why don't doctors prescribe abortion every time a woman is pregnant???
Different countries will have different laws on what counts as abortion, but they all generally agree for exceptions for life of the mother which include ectopic pregnancy, D&C for a missed miscarriage, or some sort of phrase like "a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function" (Texas abortion law). In all of these cases, the chance of death will be much greater than 0.0001%.

Assuming that pregnancy is a disease, I can make the following parallel argument:

Premise 1: Killing somebody who has been infected with the flu should be legal if the flu carries a risk of death, to prevent the flu from being transmitted to others.

Premise 2: The flu always carries a risk of death (even if the risk of death is .0001%).

Conclusion 1: Because every flu carries a risk of death, (even if the risk of death is .0001%), killing those infected with the flu should be legal in all cases, even when doctors can treat the flu with medication without killing the person who is infected.

If the solution that is being proposed is to kill somebody, we should take extreme caution that we do it in only the situations that no other solution will work.

Premise 1: Abortion should be legal at least if the pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s life.

Premise 2: Every single pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s life (even if the risk of death is .0001%).

Conclusion 1: Because every pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s life, abortion should be unconditionally legal all the way until the moment of birth.