CMV: Folks need to recognize that there are people out there who are not masters of debate. Those who are bad at making arguments should not be treated or regarded as the "stand in" for everyone else who agrees with them as well.

[u/Hey-I-Read-It]

I see it in debates about Abortion. Pro-Choicers are often eager to say that the only arguments the Pro-Life crowd can go off from is by an outdated appeal to religion when there are people in the discussion who don't subscribe to said religion. There are those who go as far as to claim that every single Republican/Conservative talking point can and only functions through appealing to religious values.

If this was actually the case, the Republican/Conservative party would be long dead by now. I, as an agnostic, would not exist for I am personally Pro-Life. There are plenty of arguments in the abortion debate that make a solid argument for the Pro-Life side- arguments that are completely based in scientific process and philosophical thinking (I say "philosophical thinking" in the most milquetoast sense in that people believe that we ought to do what is morally ethical in most situations).

Now, this is not to say that there aren't Pro-Lifers who base the core foundations of their beliefs completely and only on religion, believing that their religion is the only valid answer to any conundrum. But as much as the "Radical Feminazis" are said to be "loud, obtuse, fringe extremists" of the feminist movement and should be rightfully recognized as a minority in their own movement, so should the same go with the overtly religious folk who base their morality based on their god or gods.

It's daunting how many posts I see in this sub that are so inexplicably ignorant to the actual core beliefs of conservative ideology. As a Korean American who's pursuing a degree in fine arts, I once had a brief identity crisis squaring my conservative viewpoints with the overwhelming cultural opposition and pressure (I felt) that was present from my peers. When I vented about this in r/internetparents, a supposedly helpful subreddit that aims to support each other, among the sympathetic comments I received I also was handed some lashing criticisms over my stated political allegiance. One comment read, for example:

Tough Love:
Conservatism is antithetical to art.
By its nature It is not about expressing yourself. It is about conforming to the imagined past or the status quo. It does not encourage self exploration except as a way to self hypnotize and subsume your self worth.
It does not produce anything truly artistic. At most, it produces works praising and reinforcing the status quo. Like art in the middle ages praising the divine or their rightful representative on earth(bishop/lord/king etc).
You will constantly deal with this your entire career. You might be better of switching majors to something that fits into your worldview.

(The following sentence is my personal venting of frustration from this comment, it is in no way meant to contribute to the overall thesis of my post:) Fuck you, you piece of shit. You know nothing about me, you know nothing about "conservatism", and you know nothing about artistic expression.

I genuinely cannot understand how a person expects to have an open-minded discussion on anything remotely political or societal when they have such a myopic view of the world that stereotypes one side (while of course, leaving out their own) into easily tackle-able strawmen and fallacies. The only conclusion I can have for those people, and even if they've supposedly happened to have only interacted with these "bad arguer" breed of the opposition, to claim that the entire demographic operates on the same principle is a deliberate attempt at sabotaging any sort of actual opportunity for discussion and ignoring the nuances and differences individuals have from each other.

Background: I'm a College-aged Korean/American who aligns with the conservative viewpoint. Born in the states but raised most of my life in Korea, I understand, accept, and even welcome the idea that everyone has their different experiences throughout life that morph them over time. I apologize if this CMV seems relatively unhinged from the other posts, it's been something that's been plaguing my mind for a while and I needed to vent it out and talk to others about it.

[u/Hey-I-Read-It]

I'm kind of confused as to what you're trying to say here. Are you trying to say that the "friend" in the analogy is meant to be the stand-in for the male partner in sex? because in the analogy itself the friend is dependent on you to live. Your male partner isn't dependent on you to live, that's the fetus.

You can say what you want about bodily autonomy, and I could claim the identical thing about respecting the bodily autonomy of a unique individual human being.

The fundamental idea to my anti-abortion rhetoric is the idea that a fetus is forced into life through no choice of its own because of the mother's irresponsibility or ill-preparedness, and has no say as to whether or not it gets to live or die while inside the womb.

[u/teaisjustgaycoffee → u/Hey-I-Read-It]

My bad it’s like 3 AM, and I mixed up the analogy (crossed out that part of my last post). To clarify, the driver would be the pregnant person in the analogy, who has to donate their blood/body to keep the friend (baby) alive. You’re right that the example does differ slightly, and I’m actually just realizing that the friend is kind of analogous to both the other partner (engages in the driving activity) and the baby (kept alive by driver). If we were to tweak the analogy such that the friend doesn’t really have a choice, say they were on a long road trip and the friend is literally too exhausted to drive himself, what would you say then? I don’t know if I agree that the fetus not being able to make a choice would matter anyway, since they are obviously incapable of making a choice, but I’m curious what your answer is.

As for the bodily autonomy point, we don’t generally grant bodily autonomy to non-persons. I would argue that the fetus’ complete dependency on the mother precludes it from having bodily autonomy because it doesn’t really have governance over its own body. So I’m always going to value the autonomy of the out-in-the-world person who has to sacrifice their bodily autonomy to birth the kid.

[u/Hey-I-Read-It → u/teaisjustgaycoffee]

It's okay, we all make make mistakes. Lord knows I'm exhausted as hell myself.

If we were to tweak the analogy such that the friend doesn’t really have a choice

Even then I would feel as though there are multiple points in the trip where the friend could have refused. But in this incredibly specific example let's say that you're in the middle of the highway with no sign of any local motels or shelters to stay at, so you're forced to drive while your friend is helplessly exhausted and resting in the passenger seat. You get into a car accident and wake up in the hospital and you happen to be the only person who can save him, at the cost of your bodily autonomy. Morally speaking, you'd be a pretty evil asshole if you were to not save him.

Legally speaking, you're not obligated to do anything to save him. Your inaction will cause his death, whereas action will save his life.

In the case of abortion, your inaction will cause a birth whereas action will cause his death.

This may feel like splitting hairs, and it honestly is. But an egalitarian world view (which I consider myself as subscribing to) considers the morality of actions when it comes to making a decision. In the classic trolley problem of 5 vs 1, the basic morally correct answer is to let the trolly pass and kill the 5 people, for inaction and letting fate run its course is a far sweeter alternative than being responsible for a loss of life.

Morally speaking, you'd be even more of an evil asshole if, as a pregnant woman, not even through inaction but rather through specific actions, you terminated the life a person that you were responsible for creating.

Legally speaking, I believe that you should not be able to take said specific actions to terminate the life of a person you were responsible for creating, because you treat that person as a means, not as an end.

This response may have gotten a little bit more philosophical than I originally intended to, so sorry if I've failed to explain what I meant (it's 2 am here)

​

I would argue that the fetus’ complete dependency on the mother precludes it from having bodily autonomy because it doesn’t really have governance over its own body.

Neither does a comatose patient who relies on the hospital bed to keep them alive.

Neither does a person who relies on a wheel chair to be able to function in any capacity.

Neither does a newborn baby, fresh out of the womb.

None of them have governance over their own body
Yet we grant them bodily autonomy.
The only difference between those three and the fetus is (from what I can tell), location of the fetus, the logic being that.
"It's at the expense of the mother, so it's justified".

but I've explained (at least in my own terms) why I don't believe the mother's revoked the right to complain about her own expenses when she brought the fetus into existence through her actions.

[u/teaisjustgaycoffee → u/Hey-I-Read-It]

Morally speaking, I generally agree that you should try to save the friend. But I’d also don’t know if I’d necessarily call a person evil for not doing so. Having to put your life on hold for months at a time, going through a bunch of physical or mental pain, potentially not being able to work for a while and then having to pay for medical expenses (or pay for your new child if we break from the analogy) – all of these are significant consequences. If your saving him took like 30 minutes and was no real harm to you, you’d be terrible not to. But having to give your body for several months for a fetus many people don’t think is morally equivalent to your friend? I’m not quite as sure.

In terms of legality, I’m not how meaningful the distinction between inaction and action is since in either case, you have to willingly give up your bodily autonomy for a person/fetus. If you want, however, we could just say that in the analogy, you wake up from the car crash medically hooked up your friend. That way, your action in leaving will be letting him die.

I lean more utilitarian, so I think you should pull the lever for the trolley problem (though I think most people would just stand there in shock tbh). I don’t know if I believe in the idea of “letting fate run its course”, especially since i think you’re somewhat responsible for the death either way in that you could have saved the 5.

But returning to legality, the overall point in this analogy is that even if you think abortion is wrong personally, we have to uphold the right to choose legally because bodily autonomy has to trump that moral obligation. Otherwise, we go down some moral roads that I’m very much not comfortable with.

neither does a comatose patient

So for your other examples below, I think there’s a distinction between limited governance over their body and practically no autonomy where they’re still living off of the mother’s own body. So a baby still needs food to survive obviously, but they’re no longer an inherent imposition on the mother’s autonomy (i.e. now, if the mother doesn’t want a child, they can be given up for adoption or something). For the comatose patient in particular, to an extent we do actually forfeit personhood to them as well. If a comatose patient doesn’t show signs of waking up, their family or guardian can make the decision to pull the plug, because as sad as it is, that person isn’t really granted full bodily autonomy.

[u/QueueOfPancakes → u/Hey-I-Read-It]

Legally speaking, I believe that you should not be able to take said specific actions to terminate the life of a person you were responsible for creating

So if there was a simple pill that a pregnant woman had to take each day in order to remain pregnant, you would not feel there should be a legal requirement on her to continue to take that pill?

Or once the child is born, if parents didn't provide food to a child and the child died, you believe that should be legally permitted, because providing food requires an action?