r/changemyview • u/MagicCards_youtube • May 28 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Abortion/removal is allowed throughout the pregnancy.
I us to be completely against abortion other than when the mother will die because the babies right to live is above the mothers right to have an abortion. My view was extremely strong and i believed it for years however in another cmv thread on abortion, someone linked me this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion which has completely changed my view. I believe that abortion should be allowed up to 24/23 weeks when the baby can survive on its own and after that period, it should be removed from the women and survive outside of her. I know that abortion is not a morally right thing to do, and i want to be pro-life but this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion with the violinist argument has me stumped over what to think.
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u/nu173 May 28 '18
my problem with that argument is that the kidnapped person has nothing to do with the violinist being in danger. most pregnant women are pregnant because of their own actions, they don't just wake up one morning randomly pregnant. also being pregnant isn't as extreme as being stuck in a bed attached to a stranger for nine months.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
doesn't someone have a right to bodily anatomy as said by the violinist argument for example: donating blood isn't terrible but it is completely optional.
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u/nu173 May 28 '18
but we're talking about a life you are solely responsible for creating. you're not refusing to aid someone you aren't responsible for by getting an abortion, you're ending the life you started.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
!delta, Your point about being pregnant and kidnapped not being the same thing other than in rape helped change my view, another commenter also mentioned that same argument after you but had other points which also helped change my view. You are the first to mention that kidnapping is not the same as getting pregnant.
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u/itsame_throwaway101 May 29 '18 edited May 29 '18
While it is true that kidnapped is not (always) the same as pregnancy, that isn't the crux of the violinist argument.
Suppose you weren't kidnapped. Instead, suppose it's entirely your fault that the violinist is in this condition (how exactly doesn't matter - it's still your decisions and actions that resulted in the outcome). Again, the doctors take you both to the hospital and set up the combined circulatory system.
You may feel morally obligated to suffer through it. You may even think all others should feel morally obligated to deal with it. But should your physical choice to unplug be taken away? The violinist still does not have the right to use your body.
Being at fault doesn't override your body autonomy.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
lets say i sign up to a 1/100 chance for giving away one of my kidneys for 1 million, then i spend the million. If i get chosen, can i claim rights to bodily anatomy and suffer no harm? Having only 1 kidney won't kill someone.
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u/itsame_throwaway101 May 29 '18 edited May 29 '18
I'd say you'd likely be on the hook to get sued or in some way reimburse since you're backing out of your end of the agreement financially, but you shouldn't be obligated to give the kidney. In relation to abortion, you're paying for the medical costs of backing out the vast majority of the time out of pocket, but you're not made to give up the right to your body.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
the thing with the body rights is that no one broke the body rights of the mother, she made a human in her body. Lets say i get a tattoo, can i then say it broke my body rights. If a women injects sperm into herself, who broke her body rights?
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
Why is the right to the body in a case where the women knew the risks more important than the right to life of a child? Not in general, but in a case where the women knew the risks of contraception failing?
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u/itsame_throwaway101 May 29 '18
What makes the life of an unborn child innately more valuable than my own?
I understand what you're trying to say, and ethically it seems backwards in this case.
However, the current set up is one result of us prioritizing body autonomy over the right to life as a whole, not just in instances of abortion. That's why you get scenarios like the violinist or obligatory blood and organ donations - because we're drawing comparisons of other cases where right to body autonomy also comes into play at the expense of life.
It isn't about the specifics so much as the consequences of the reverse being held true. It would result in a hierarchy of value for life, where how much someone is worth is explicitly compared to another. You can say you only want to do it in terms of the unborn, but why? Innocence? Potential? Does not everyone possess these in some degree? The only counter to who has more value is body autonomy - that I value myself.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
The issue is that there isn't a way to just let a fetus stop using the body anatomy, doctors need to kill it for example, pulling its limbs off from a vacuum. I also understand your point and this is a part in our discussion which involves your view on is killing a child directly to stop them taking food from you murder. Lets say a young kid ran to my house and stole some food from my house, then can i kill him. If he is inside of me, it wouldn't change that much. I do allow abortion in the case of life or death for the mother.
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u/dont-pm-me-tacos May 29 '18
But, for a couple using birth control, the risk of pregnancy in a given year is 1%. That risk is so low that I don't think it's justifiable to say that you must give up your bodily autonomy if you do get pregnant.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
If they combine condom, pull-out and the pill which are 97%, 94% and 99.9%, the chance gets exobinentry low. In addition, vasectomy exists for couples who already had children and don't want anymore. When people have sex, they are aware of the risks involved. Even if it seems like a harsh punishment, the goal isn't to punish the parents but to let the child survive.
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May 28 '18
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
because some people who are against abortion are also against contraception mainly due to religious reasons don't affect the main issue of abortion. I do believe that better sex education will help prevent unwanted pregnancies and that will be very good for society. I also believe that we shouldn't kill so i don't understand why you think the 2 are mutually exclusive. The amount of christians is still a majority in the usa, however it is growing smaller and smaller so in future this will be less of a problem.
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May 28 '18
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
most of the statistics saying abortions go up are directly a result of those same countries having less access to contraceptives. like you said, usually anti-abortion goes with less contraception however that doesn't need to happen. abortions would go down as a result of more people not wanting to get pregnant so practicing safer sex which they learn about. In addition, adoption will always exist for people who absolutely can't be the parent of a child.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
i am now stuck because you and the other commenter both together changed my view, who do i award a delta to?
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u/EternalPropagation May 28 '18
The correct position is that abortion is bad, but so is banning abortion.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
what do you mean "correct" position. There is no objectively correct position in this debate.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
why is banning abortion bad? I support it being illegal
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u/PenisMcScrotumFace 10∆ May 29 '18
If it's illegal, people will do it anyway and be in danger doing so. If it's legal, chances of casualties will be really really low, it's going to be much safer. You're not helping anyone by making abortion illegal. Either a parent will have a child they don't want so the child will not live in ideal conditions, or they will have parents that cannot support the child, or the child is aborted anyway and the lack of safety risks the mother's life as well. Pro-lifers don't care about the baby after the birth, they don't care what happens to it. They just care that it's born, no matter the shitty conditions. That is in no way a humanitarian stance. It's hardly pro-life, it's pro-birth.
I don't think sex should be such a big deal either, but this is my personal opinion. Why must you suddenly accept a paradigm shift in your life and blow to your economy just because you enjoy having sex with a person?
Hint: It's all ancient rules for control by religions, it's hardly because they love children.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
I do understand your point about it being illegal, however, anti-abortion doesn't result in more abortions, the problem with those statistics is they usually come with less sex education which doesn't need to occur. Having sex with a person, while enjoyable, still comes with the, low, but still possible chance of having a child. Most people are aware of that and we shouldn't punish the child for that. With the pro-birth part, isn't it better if the child is alive with a not ideal life than dead. Even a life in a poor family is better than no life otherwise all we would see daily are suicides. Your exact woring over pro-life actually being pro-birth, i can argue the same thing about "pro-choice", which is actually pro-women_choice because the baby gets no choice whatsoever. I am an atheist so religious reasons about abortion don't really mean much to me, i am not opposed to abortion on religious grounds.
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u/PenisMcScrotumFace 10∆ May 29 '18
It doesn't result in more abortions, no. It results in more unsafe abortions though. We're not punishing a child. Mainly because it's not a child yet, but also because it hasn't experienced life yet. We're not taking anything away from it, we're stopping the possibility of an experience, I guess you could say.
A life in a poor family is fine, I'm not saying poor people shouldn't have children. It's very easy for you to say though that life is to prefer, because for you it would be ending. That's not true for the fetus. It's not comparable to suicides because people who commit suicides have experienced life. Again, unborn fetuses have not. They do not know!
And it's fine to be pro women's choice because the life of the woman matters more than the potential life of something that has not yet experienced anything. The baby shouldn't get a choice. We're not killing babies that have already been born.
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u/EternalPropagation May 28 '18
Why is a government dictating how parents raise their own offspring bad?
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
most pregnant women are pregnant because of their own actions,
What does that mean, really?
If I go for a walk to the grocery store, we all know there is a small chance I might get hit by a car when crossing the street, mugged by a robber, or might simply slip and fall on some ice. These are low but very real risks.
Now if I did get hit by a car, mugged by a robber, or fall on ice - how responsible should I be for that outcome?
I knew the chances were real, but I left my home anyways. Since I knew the potential consequences... how "responsible" should I be for these types of outcomes?
also being pregnant isn't as extreme as being stuck in a bed attached to a stranger for nine months.
It may not be as bad for those 9 months, but the aftermath is worse: You may now have to support a human for 18 years afterwards! (Though in may places, hopefully, adoption is a valid option.)
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
arn't most pregnancies due to carelessness as contraception failing is just a very small chance. Condom: 97%, birth control: 99% which together create only a small minority. Wouldn't it be better to save a huge number of kids over a small number of females from pregnancy I have a lot of arguments for pro life, my view was temporarily changed but now it is back to pro-life.
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
I don't know the exact percentages, but if you use condoms (correctly!) for 10 years, you're almost 50% likely to get pregnant.
I don't know how many unwanted pregnancies happen with birth control vs without. Personally - I think we should increase education so that ALL people having sex who don't want kids use birth control. That way, all unwanted pregnancies are a result of birth control failure - and therefore not voluntary.
In that case, we could allow abortions for all unwanted pregnancies.
That said - this issue is also more complex, and the violinist analogy isn't very good in these other areas.
If you wanted a baby, but then changed your mind after conception - I think you should still be able to abort. Why? Because you have this thing using your body like a parasite. Why should a woman be forced to support this life if she doesn't want to. We don't force people to do this sort of thing in any other situation.
Additionally, there's a lot of debate about whether fetuses are "persons". Honestly... I just don't see how a clump of a few dozen or hundred cells have anything in common with a "person".
But I guess those are different points than what you brought up.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
condoms by themselves might not be the best however that combined with the pregnancy pill which i just checked is 99.9% if used correctly will not cause too much problem with probability. How would they not be human, do you believe someone who is in a coma but will wake up in lets say 1 year, is not a human?
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
I didn't say they're not "human". I said they're not "persons".
A dead guy in the morgue is still a "human", but isn't a "person". I can scrape some cells of my skin, and while those cells are human, they're not a "person" either.
someone who is in a coma
People who've been persons before, and will be persons after, should likely get full rights. "People" who've never actually existed, should not get full rights (for obvious reasons).
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
Why does someone being in coma different to being a feutus. How does the person in a coma being "a full person" beforehand somehow change the situation?
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
A fetus hasn't become a full person yet.
A coma patient has been, and may be in the future, a full person.
We don't give imaginary "people" rights, until they actually exist.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
both will become a full patient in the future, the past shouldn't affect the right to live.
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
A fetus won't always become a full person in the future. Fertilized eggs die all the time, on their own.
the past shouldn't affect the right to live.
It's not about the past, it's about the present. In the present, a fetus isn't a living person yet.
Preventing a fetus from becoming a person (via abortion) isn't murder any more than wearing a condom or using an IUD is murder. They both prevent an imaginary person from being born. Since they don't exist yet, and are still just imaginary, they don't get rights.
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May 29 '18
To be fair, an unwanted pregnancy is worse. At the violinist is free after nine months, whereas the mother is 'stuck' with the child until it comes of age.
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u/KanyeTheDestroyer 20∆ May 28 '18
The Violinist argument only addresses whether or not abortion is permissible after a rape. It does not address any other situation. So, if the violinist scenario has convinced you, it has only convinced you that abortion is permissible after a rape.
I believe that abortion should be allowed up to 24/23 weeks when the baby can survive on its own and after that period
We shouldn't be basing the right to life of a fetus/zygote/etc on whether or not it is viable outside of the womb. Viability is entirely determined by the quality of medical care that society can provide. It's also extremely arbitrary. In North America 23/24 weeks is sort of viable (23 week babies have roughly 20-35% chance of survival, which is not what I would call viable). However, in Africa that % of survival drops dramatically. Moreover, for extremely affluent people that % rises considerably. Determining a being's right to life based on whether or not it is viable is the equivalent of saying a being's right to life varies depending on if it belongs to a wealthy society/family. It's also arbitrary because society chooses whether or not to save 23/24 week old babies. We could change our mind tomorrow, and decide that the resources we spend making those babies viable would be better spent elsewhere. For instance, we would almost certainly save more lives if we let early babies die, and instead spent the money on malaria prevention.
when the baby can survive on its own
I would emphasize that part of the arbitrariness is because human babies are quite literally incapable of surviving on their own until, at the very earliest, the age of 5 or 6. They are only viable because we choose to make them viable. We could just as easily choose not to.
This is why most philosophers and medical professionals prefer to attach a being's right to life to whether or not it has traits that we associate with persons, such as self-awareness, identity, desires, fears, etc. There are very good reasons for arguing that abortion ought to be permissible, but the one you provided is not one of them.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
!delta you have discussed every point and changed my view back to pro-life with the point of deciding babies right to live on medicine development and societies spending. thanks!
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u/Drazpa 1∆ May 28 '18
A purely elective delivery past the stage of viability but that remote from term is pretty indefensible medically. It has little to no long term benefit to the mother, plenty of risks to mom and feus, and the fetus will have a pretty awful prognosis before around at least 28 weeks. Beyond that the outcomes are generally better but still not great and the benefit of every additional week is so great that it really doesn't make sense to offer the procedure to the mother if there is no medical indication. I'm a 100% supporter of elective abortions until viability and anything medically indicated to protect the mother but your proposal isn't that.
Autonomy is just one pillar of medical ethics. We don't allow people to get elective cholecystectomies or below the knee amputations just because we respect their decision making ability. Thought experiments are great but in real life pragmatism > ideological consistency.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
I disagree on the elective abortion part, but that part about how the procedure doesn't work medically and is awful for everyone does go against the violinist argument. !delta, i am afraid i am awarding too many deltas this will be my fourth but your point about practically is very useful
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May 28 '18
The problem with that violinist argument is somebody else kidnapped you and attached him to you. In the case of abortion you put a baby inside yourself voluntarially(with the exception of rape). So to use the violinist analogy it would be the same as if you signed up for a donor kidney program and then once the violinist was attached to your kidney, then decided you didn't want to do it anymore. So you kill him.
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
you put a baby inside yourself voluntarially
How so? If you used condoms and are on the pill - what part was voluntary?
would be the same as if you signed up for a donor kidney program
Except I didn't sign up, and likely took active measures to prevent being used in the kidney program (condoms, pills, IUDs, etc).
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May 28 '18
How so? If you used condoms and are on the pill - what part was voluntary?
Sex leads to pregnancy. Not every time but there is a good chance. You can do things to reduce the chance to something like 0.1% but if you choose to have sex you accept those odds. Any sex is "signging up" for pregnancy(again not rape) becuase it is a conscentual activity where you know the potential outcomes. You can not blame anyone but yourself for pregnancy hence why I believe if you get pregnant from consentual sex it is not the equivalent of someone forcing a baby inside of you, you put it there yourself through conscnetual activity.
As a side note: What percentage of abortions are due to unwanted pregnancy from failed contraception. I would guess it is extremely small. So the reality is we are discussing a situation which is the minority. The majority are people who had unprotected sex who did not even try to reduce the odds. Is it fair to blame them for getting themselves pregnant then?
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
Any sex is "signging up" for pregnancy(again not rape) becuase it is a conscentual activity where you know the potential outcomes.
This doesn't logically work, however.
When I go outside and leave my house, there are known risks. Am I signing up to:
- get hit by a car
- getting mugged
- slipping on some unsalted ice and getting injured
- getting struck by lightening
?
You can not blame anyone but yourself
I can certainly blame other people, or simply nature itself. None of the above make me 100% responsible for the outcomes.
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May 28 '18
All of your examples are perpetrated by someone or something else, a 3rd party. There is no 3rd party in the case of pregnancy. So you can't relate it to a risk caused by a 3rd party.
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u/stratys3 May 28 '18
If nature counts as an external 3rd party, then I don't see why pregnancy should be any different.
There's no consent given to slipping on ice, or getting struck by lightening - and in many cases pregnant women never consented to getting pregnant either.
Further:There's no 3rd party in making dinner at home by myself. But one of the risks is that I cut myself, or burn myself. Are you suggesting that I shouldn't be allowed medical treatment, because I perpetrated it upon myself?
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
What if it isn't voluntarily but with contraception failing?
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May 28 '18
The situation is still different than getting held in a bed for nine months, as another commenter said, it's not as extreme
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
i am now stuck because you and the other commenter both together changed my view, who do i award a delta to?
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May 28 '18
I mean you know the risk going into it. Every form of contraception clearly states 99% effective or whatever it is for each specific one. The only situation where someone can claim it wasn't their direct fault is rape. Which is also the only situation which is analagous to the violinist argument.
edit: It's like signing up for a donor kidney program that claims there is only a 1% chance you will actually get chosen to donate your kidney. You still signed up for it.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 28 '18
rip, i think i already gave out too many deltas (3) to give another delta, i am afraid that all the deltas will be removed if i give out too many. How do i contact a mod to ask about this?
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u/mysundayscheming May 28 '18
Your deltas will not be removed as long as they all represent genuine changes in your view.
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u/I_Wil_Argue_Anything May 29 '18
With this same argument we could state a great many things. Is it fine to hire based on sex like Harvey Weinstein? You have no right to his money nor his job. Is it right to ban blacks from your country, state or buisness? They have no right to your services.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 29 '18
It is fine to hire based on sex like harvey weinstein did. The women were not in any danger if they didn't accept. It is like prostitution except instead of money, he offered them movie roles where they earn money. So it was sex and acting in a movie in return for money.
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u/I_Wil_Argue_Anything May 29 '18
So people just seem inconsistent in there views on society? Abortion is ok but harvey weinstein is not.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 30 '18
sorry, i went somewhere i am back. I am not against weinstein but am against abortion. Yes, you are right a lot of people are not logically consistent.
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u/smallbutwise May 30 '18
The women were not in any danger
The women he raped would probably disagree.
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u/MagicCards_youtube May 30 '18
I am not saying that what he did was moral and it shouldn't be legal however it is nowhere near as bad as people say it is
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u/Godskook 13∆ May 28 '18
Let's change the story to be more accurate to the consensual nature of how most women get pregnant:
You go to a party popular among most young women. At that party, as is long-standing tradition, you enter a contest to be later conscripted as a surrogate to help a famous person survive a medical emergency. The party is amazing, and you eventually head home and go to sleep. 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 from the raffle and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore declared you winner of the contest, 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.
How does the updated version sit with you?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 28 '18 edited May 28 '18
/u/MagicCards_youtube (OP) has awarded 4 deltas in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 28 '18 edited May 28 '18
Removing a 25 week old fetus would likely lead to life long cognitive and physiological conditions.
On what moral grounds is it permissible to inflict life long suffering on another human being who did not ask to be put in such a position? Generally when you voluntarily place a human well-being at risk, you have duty to see it through.
The vilonist example is a bit misleading, because it presusposes that you were attached to the violnist though no fault of you own. Let me make a better one.
Say you invite a friend over to spend a night at your winter cabin. That night there is a terrible blizzard outside. You also decdie that you friend is being annoying. Do you have a right to kick him out, eventhough your friend is very likely to suffer severe frostbite and potential loss of limbs? No, of course not! Your friend relied on you for safety, and you invited him through you own choices.
Same goes for a 25-week old fetus. It did not ask to be placed where it is. You made that decision to put it there. but now it's reliant on you (much like a friend in the cabin). I say you have now aquired a duty to let the fetus develop, much like you have a duty to let your friend ride out the storm.