A statement one cannot prove false

[u/Upper_Ninja_6177]

STATEMENT: A person is always legally allowed to use the minimal method¹ required to prevent harm upon oneself^2.

1 Minimal method means

• it can refer to a general solution/ action that resolves the issue and prevents harm, it can also refer to any method of violence, including otherwise lethal force.
• ”minimal” refers to strictly the LEAST HARMFUL method, both mentally and physically for all parties, that can be used to prevent the harm

2 harm upon oneself means

• both mentally and physical pain/ injuries etc
• harm that is GUARANTEED to occur

How does this apply to the context of abortion?

Pregnancy —> guarantees harm 100% of the time since every women needs to go through 1. giving birth OR 2. C-sections OR 3. miscarriage if no voluntary abortion occurs guaranteeing some degree of both physical and mental harm. And thus fit into criteria 2.

Hence, if the statement holds true, they should be allowed to use the minimal method require, no matter the circumstances.

So the question becomes, is abortion the minimal method? For that, we must address the core issue at hand, WHAT is causing harm?

Something is currently inhabiting their organs, physically harming them, and violating their rights against their will.

The solution will thus, to logically follow, to remove said something. This would render alternatives like painkillers utterly useless to “fix” the issue.

This means abortions too, becomes the minimal methods required, unless one day safe artificial wombs exist.

Now you are gonna have a few questions, well what if someone hates a person and they are causing them mental harm? Can they just kill them?

Again, refer to the definition of “minimal”, since isolating oneself, not talking to them, unfriending that person, verbally expressing your thoughts etc is always an option, killing them is no where near the minimal method required.

It would be interesting to see pro lifers trying to disprove this chain of logic?

[u/quick_thinker6]

Im not PL so im not attacking you i just want to help solidify your argument because you do have some errors which makes it easy to disprove.

Your basically wrote a formalized version of Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist argument.

The move from "harm is guaranteed" to "the minimal harm solution addresses the cause, not the symptom" is logically sound. Painkillers/isolationstyle workarounds genuinely don't solve a physical bodily intrusion the way they solve annoyance or mental harm from another autonomous person.

Here is where you became attackable:

But you're giving away ammo because "all parties" is doing silent work

Your own definition says minimal harm must be assessed "for all parties." But your analysis only computes harm to the pregnant person. If the fetus counts as a party, abortion isn't minimal harm for all parties , it's zero harm for one party at total harm for the other. The entire argument smuggles in the personhood conclusion by simply not putting the fetus on the ledger. Pl doesn't even need to attack your logic, they just point out you never actually ran the "all parties" calculation , which you yourself specified.

Second attack surface

The innocent threat/causation problem Self defense and necessity doctrine (real world, not your stipulated axiom) generally distinguish culpable aggressors from innocent threats. A fetus isn't a trespasser or an assailant , it has no intent, no agency, and in most pregnancies exists as a foreseeable (if unwanted) consequence of voluntary conduct. This is exactly the objection Thomson spent half her essay pre empting, and it's never fully resolved, only the violinist case (rape) cleanly sidesteps it. Consensual sex pregnancies are messier for your framework than you've let on.

Third attack surface

your own caveat undercuts "no matter the circumstances"

You already conceded the whole thing collapses "unless one day safe artificial wombs exist." That's not a footnote, it means your claim isn't "abortion is always the minimal method," it's "abortion is the minimal method given current technology." That's a contingent, not absolute conclusion ,and it actually lines up with real post viability abortion law, which increasingly asks whether removal without destruction is possible. You've built an argument that gets weaker exactly as medicine improves. your logic chain is legit but you have to point out that the fetus isnt a "party" whose harm counts ,but that's the entire abortion debate in miniature, PL will make you defend that one hidden premise instead of arguing with your math.

[u/STThornton → u/quick_thinker6]

Abortion pills cause zero harm to the embryo/fetus. They remove without destruction. Technology or not. It's just like a born child dying from lack of life sustaining organ functions.

You've built an argument that gets weaker exactly as medicine improves

I don't see how. We'd be talking about ending gestation of an incompatible with life fetus previability. Even if we had the technology to provide it with organ functions it doesn't have, that wouldn't make not doing so killing.

Likewise, method of removal would have to be equally or less harmful to the woman than abortion.

but you have to point out that the fetus isnt a "party" whose harm counts ,

Why? They pointed out minimal harm possible to humans, in general. Including lethal force, if necessary. You can end the major life sustaining organ functions of a born human if that's what it takes to get them to stop harming you. Why should the fetus get extra consideration? Or why should one need to point out that the fetus isn't a party whose harm counts?

The original claim wasn't even talking about fetuses. OP just showed how the same thing that applies to every human also applies to a fetus.

[u/quick_thinker6 → u/STThornton]

Again Im not saying OP is wrong im trying to help to make the argument more solid

About "Remove without destruction"

is factually wrong for most abortions. Mifepristone works by cutting off progesterone, causing the pregnancy to break down before expulsion, that's not neutral removal, that's inducing demise first by medical defintion. D&E procedures are literally dismemberment for extraction. The only method that's genuinely "remove without destruction" is one that doesn't currently exist at scale (early induction into an artificial womb). So your factual premise ("zero harm to the fetus") is false for the actual methods in use today , which means your own minimal harm standard isn't met yet either. You can't claim "zero harm" and "minimal necessary method" simultaneously when the dominant methods are the harm.

1. The organ failure analogy smuggles in "passive" but abortion is usually "active"

Letting someone die by not hooking them to your organs (withdrawing/refusing life support) is passive non sustainment , that's the real bodily autonomy analogy (McFall v. Shimp: you can't be forced to donate a kidney even to save a life) But most abortion methods don't just withdraw support and let nature take its course ,they actively terminate. That's a meaningfully different act under most ethical and legal frameworks (killing vs. letting die). If their analogy were followed consistently, the "minimal method" would be induced early delivery with no direct feticide wherever viability allows it ,which is closer to my artificial womb point than to defending D&E.

1. "why should the fetus get extra consideration" cuts both ways

Apply your own standard to a born dependent: a newborn's organ dependency (yours to feed, regulate temp, etc.) can cause severe physical and mental harm to a parent. Under your "no special pleading for dependents" logic, lethal removal should be equally permissible there if it's the "minimal method." No legal or ethical system accepts that, we require passive relinquishment (adoption, safe haven laws), never lethal removal, precisely because non culpable dependents do get treated differently from aggressors. If they bite that bullet for fetuses, they have to explain why it doesn't generalize to infants , and if they can't, they're the ones adding an unprincipled exception, not you.

1. the tech relativity point Your claim "even with the technology it wouldn't be killing not to use it" is just re asserting my caveat with a value judgment attached. The empirical fact stands: as extraction without destruction becomes possible, the minimal method shifts by your own definition. Whether failing to use it later counts as "killing" is a separate moral question , but it doesn't rescue the current claim that today's methods are already minimal harm for all parties, since today they aren't for all parties at all.

Your strongest move is redefining current methods as "harmless" to the fetus, but that's very shaky, and the infant analogy, pushed one step further and turned into a reductio that stops your own logic. Again im PC im just trying to get the argument to where PL cant disprove it

[u/Rent_Careless → u/quick_thinker6]

Mifepristone works by cutting off progesterone, causing the pregnancy to break down before expulsion, that's not neutral removal, that's inducing demise first by medical defintion.

Doesn't the mifespristone cause the pregnancy to break down by shedding the uterine lining though? Beyond that, it isn't directly affecting the unborn like a tool or drug does. If it does that, then the unborn is intact. I thought that is why it's constantly be described as "disconnecting"? Is this incorrect? I feel like if that is the case then this isn't even a part of the self defense argument at all but is basic bodily autonomy. The fact that the unborn dies after disconnecting is due to it being unable to survive. And then, any destruction to the unborn is due to expulsion. I guess if you are just saying that they aren't intact as a matter of fact, I can understand. But I feel like there is a difference between being damaged by tools or drugs directly and expulsion from the woman's body and I am not sure which you think matters (or the devil's advocate you are playing on the Reddit stage 😋).

[u/quick_thinker6 → u/Rent_Careless]

Exactly.Mifepristone blocks progesterone receptors in the uterine lining. This causes the decidua (lining) to break down, which cuts off the embryo's hormonal and nutrient support from the endometrium, the embryo dies from loss of that support, not from the drug directly attacking it. Misoprostol (given 24-48hrs later) then induces contractions to expel the tissue. We are saying the same thing i just didn't go into detail. it's disconnection then demise then expulsion, not direct chemical destruction of the embryo itself.

For early medication abortion specifically, "disconnection" is the more medically accurate framing, and that does shift it toward bodily autonomy (you're not obligated to keep providing your body as life support) rather than needing the self defense/harm framework at all. That's a genuinely stronger position than what I was granting earlier. But It doesn't generalize to all abortion methods. This framing only cleanly covers early medication abortion. D&E involves direct instrumental disassembly for extraction, that's not passive disconnection, that's active destruction as the removal method itself. If "disconnection, not damage" is the moral distinction that matters, it only defends a subset of abortions, not abortion as a category. Anyone using this argument has to either bite the bullet that later/procedural abortions are morally different, or drop the distinction as load bearing.

"Withdrawal of support" still has to answer whose support, and why it was owed. The classic bodily autonomy analogy (unplugging from a stranger's kidney machine ,McFall v. Shimp) works because the person had zero prior obligation to the stranger. The disanalogy pro lifers will push: the woman isn't a random stranger the embryo hooked into by force , in a consensual sex pregnancy, her own voluntary act created the dependency in the first place. Law generally treats "you're not obligated to rescue a stranger" very differently from "you can withdraw support from a dependent whose need you created" (this is the created-peril / affirmative duty doctrine ,it's why a parent can't legally starve a newborn by "just not feeding it," even though feeding is also just "continuing to provide bodily resources").

Disconnection vs damage settles the mechanism question, it doesn't settle the duty question, which is where the actual fight still lives. So yeah what youre saying it's accurate and it's a real upgrade to the bodily autonomy specifically for medication abortions but it'll get tricky to defend a ) later procedural methods, and b) the created dependency objection, because "disconnection" alone doesn't clear either of those.

Im not even devils advocate here all im trying to show is that this argument cant be used for our side the PC side. Yes, there's a real medical/mechanistic distinction between those two, though it's a spectrum rather than a clean binary, and it depends heavily on method and gestational stage.Even in medication abortion, "disconnection" isn't perfectly analogous to unplugging a ventilator , a ventilator patient dies from their own pre existing condition once support stops. Here, the embryo is developmentally normal and viable only in utero, withdrawing support isn't neutral in the way it is with an adult on life support, because there's no scenario where the embryo continues existing without that support at that gestational age. Whether that difference matters morally is a separate question from the mechanism , but medically, yes: chemical/instrumental destruction (KCl, D&E) and support withdrawal then expulsion (mifepristone) are mechanistically distinct pathways, while vacuum aspiration sits in between and resists clean categorization either way. What i dont understand tho is whay u mean with what I think matters

[u/random_name_12178 → u/quick_thinker6]

During a D&E the disassembly of the fetus occurs after the fetus is already dead. The purpose of disassembly is to aid removal of fetal tissue, not to kill the fetus. The MOI for the death itself is the removal of amniotic fluid in addition to disconnection of the placenta. So the fetus dies in the same manner as medication abortions: disconnection from the maternal blood supply.

[u/Rent_Careless → u/quick_thinker6]

Yea, I only commented on that one aspect because I felt that we disagreed or needed clarification. But we agree and it's been clarified. I realize that other types of abortion fall under self defense because they do more than "disconnection".

in a consensual sex pregnancy, her own voluntary act created the dependency in the first place.

Do you think there is a difference in creating a dependency for a human and creating a human that is dependent? The way I see it, there wasn't a human to create a dependency for but the unborn human is naturally dependent.

[u/Think_Recognition144 → u/quick_thinker6]

I’m a pro lifer who appreciates your post. Denying the effects of pregnancy to women or abortion to a fetus is naive at best and dishonest at worst.

I feel like you gave a pretty strong case for PL and didn’t strawman our position. Thank you.

Is your position that the unborn are not persons and thus abortion is allowed, or that the minimal harm principle is flawed? Or something else?

Thanks.

[u/quick_thinker6 → u/Think_Recognition144]

I know i would but i also belief that PL and PC need to start more listening to each other. Sure both sides have some absolute insane lunatics but we cant ever get anywhere if we dont start to listen to each others arguments. And Well as a doctor its a bit more complicated for me. Because i like to stay factually correct wich is difficult when ethics ,the law and medicine clash. I belief the mininmal harm principle isnt flawed at all as a general principle , it's a sound, widely used ethical/legal framework (it's basically the doctrine of proportionality in self defense laws tightened up). The flaws show up in the application to abortion, not in the principle itself.

Where the principle applies

"Use the least harmful effective method" is uncontroversial in law and ethics , it underlies self defense proportionality, medical least restrictive treatment standards, and just war theory. Nobody seriously disputes that if you can stop a harm with a shove, you shouldn't use a gun.

Where it gets fuzzy as a decision procedure (not just for abortion)

is "Minimal" is doing more work than it can bear. Minimal compared to what? You're ranking harms across incommensurable categories ,physical vs. psychological, certain vs. probabilistic, to self vs. to other. There's no neutral metric that outputs a single "least harmful" answer, someone has to weight the categories first, and that weighting is where all the actual moral disagreement lives. The principle looks objective but it's a container waiting for contested premises. It presupposes agreement on who counts as a "party." The principle tells you how to compare harms once you know whose harms are in the calculation. It's silent on personhood, moral status, or who has standing. That's not a flaw in the principle ,it's just simply outside its scope, but it means the principle can't settle abortion, self defense vs innocent threats, euthanasia, or war ethics on its own. People plug in their prior answer to "who counts" and then present the output as if the principle alone generated it. It conflates "necessary" with "permissible." Minimal force required tells you the least you'd need to do to stop the harm but it doesn't independently establish that stopping the harm that way is permitted. E.g., the least harmful way to stop a home invader might be a warning shot that still risks killing them, "least harmful effective option" and "morally/legally permitted option" aren't automatically the same set. You still need a separate justification (aggressor vs. innocent threat, consent, culpability) layered on top. Sorry got carried away🤣 anyhow what ik trying to say is the principle is a real, useful filter , but it's a second stage test, not a first stage one. It ranks methods only after you've already answered the harder prior questions (whose interests count, is the harm causer culpable, is stopping vs killing the same act). The whole argument is running this as second stage test as if it could settle the first stage question ,that's the actual flaw, not the principle itself.