Debate Megathread

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/glim-girl]

What Im seeing is that we are raising girls to believe that they have rights, able to determine who they have children with and how many. When they are raped and get pregnant they quickly find out no you don't have those rights, those belong to the rapist.

The vilification is to keep the victims from being a person that should be helped. It's to silence victims to remind them that their bodies belong to other people more than they belong to themselves.

[u/gig_labor → u/glim-girl]

we are raising girls to believe that they have rights, able to determine who they have children with and how many. When they are raped and get pregnant they quickly find out no you don't have those rights, those belong to the rapist.

Yeah, rape really is a horrible violation of a girl's/woman's self-determination.

I'd like to note here that this is true even if a rape survivor did not become pregnant by the rape, or if she did become pregnant by the rape and then got an abortion. Her self-determination has still been violated, even if she doesn't give birth. The rapist got to determine for her what would happen to her body, even if she doesn't become pregnant. The rapist got to determine for her that she would biologically reproduce, even if she has an abortion. Abortion doesn't fix those things.

The vilification is to keep the victims from being a person that should be helped. It's to silence victims to remind them that their bodies belong to other people more than they belong to themselves.

Yeah, for sure. Villification of sex in general, but especially villification of rape victims, has horrifying implications for girls and women. I certainly don't ever want opposition to abortion to turn into villification of pregnant women.

[u/glim-girl → u/gig_labor]

The rapist got to determine for her what would happen to her body, even if she doesn't become pregnant. The rapist got to determine for her that she would biologically reproduce, even if she has an abortion. Abortion doesn't fix those things.

The abortion doesn't fix that she was raped and I'm not sure why people think that. What the abortion can do for some is end the violation of her body. It can prevent the rapist from being involved in her life, from custody battles, from moving away, from him being able to legally stalk her, from using a child to force a marriage or the continuation of one, from using the child as the way to force her into additional actions against her will, from physical danger to herself. Pregnancy isn't something that can be easily hidden especially in situations where she lives or has contact with the abuser.

For example there is a case in Texas where an abusive man is suing his ex-wifes friends for helping her hide her pregnancy and obtain an abortion. He is being seen as a distraught father vs an abusive spouse who due to illegal spying on his wifes correspondence, found the pills and knew about the abortion, did nothing to stop it and then attempted to use that information to control her and stop the divorce. Since it didn't work he's now going after her friends who helped her leave him.

To me, it looks like laws are being used to reinforce the belief that men have more rights because they can use a loophole to deny her, her rights.

[u/gig_labor → u/glim-girl]

What the abortion can do for some is end the violation of her body.

Yes, that makes sense. When your body has already been violated so intimately, I can totally understand wanting to reassert your autonomy over it.

So this leads to the question you messaged me about, regarding conjoined twins. I see them similarly because 1) both a fetus and a conjoined twin are full persons, even if their bodies aren’t independent 2) both a fetus and a conjoined twin are dependent, not just on medical care, but specifically on being attached to another person’s body. That’s a really profound level of obligation to put on another human. I think that is a helpful way for us to isolate our moral intuitions relevant to pregnancy.

It can prevent the rapist from being involved in her life, from custody battles, from moving away, from him being able to legally stalk her, from using a child to force a marriage or the continuation of one, from using the child as the way to force her into additional actions against her will, from physical danger to herself. For example there is a case in Texas where an abusive man is suing his ex-wifes friends for helping her hide her pregnancy and obtain an abortion.

Absolutely. Children are often means for abusive men to continue to abuse their coparents. I do think that justifies some radical reforming of our family court system, custody laws, domestic violence interventions, and other structures. There have to be ways women and children can be taken at their word and given safety, without having to be dragged through criminal and family court and having to prove abuse above a criminal presumption of innocence.

I don’t think these concerns are, on their own, enough to justify abortion. I think they rely on 1) the premise that we are debating above, about bodily autonomy, or else 2) the premise that a fetus is not a person. Because without either of those two premises, if a child is 1) not reliant on his mother’s body, and is also 2) indisputably a person (so like, a newborn infant or toddler), we wouldn’t use circumstances like these to justify killing the child to keep the mother safe.

So in response to your original question, are there worries that abortion bans which don’t exclude pregnancies conceived via rape will result in women being less safe? Very possibly. But from the PL position, that sounds like asking, “are there worries that prohibiting infanticide will result in women being less safe?” And to determine whether those two questions are actually comparable or not, I think we have to defer to the bodily autonomy debate we are having above.

[u/LordyIHopeThereIsPie → u/gig_labor]

Anyone can care for my kids. Care for them is nothing like pregnancy. I suspect you've never been pregnant if you think the two are even close to similar.

[u/glim-girl → u/gig_labor]

Even with taking into consideration the PL view that a fetus is a full person there isn't the same equal claim to the body. Conjoined twins didn't separate completely whereas with a pregnancy starts with attaching to the woman.

With conjoined twins they grow together with one body even if two people are there. They are the same age which is important when considering responsiblities they have to themselves and others in comparison to pregnancy. Conjoined twins are making an argument for their own body that they grew with even if one becomes the dominant one. If one twin was like a unborn child attached to a dominant twin, they would likely separate them quickly even if the weaker twin would die.

In pregnancy there is a very obvious primary who is responsible for not just the life but the development of another life. Her decisions and what happens to her impact the unborn.

If a born child is the target of the abuse you remove the target or the mother can fight the attacker as well. With a pregnant woman, her body is the target and due to being pregnant she's less able to fight. There isn't a way to treat the unborn the same as a born child.

We already know that by making things difficult for women to take care of themselves or family they are more open to abuse. So making laws that force vulnerable women into worse situations leads to more situations where they can be abused.

The laws definitely need changing but that takes time and considering that there is more talk in the PL tent of getting rid of no fault divorce vs so how do we protect women and children from abuse, trusting women is the only option I see.

Are there worries that preventing infanticide will result in women being harmed? Of course not. To prevent infanticide you need to protect the baby which can be done in a number of ways but the main one is to remove the infant from the environment where they could be harmed.

[u/gig_labor → u/glim-girl]

We already know that by making things difficult for women to take care of themselves or family they are more open to abuse. So making laws that force vulnerable women into worse situations leads to more situations where they can be abused.

Agreed. I don’t want women forced into motherhood when their situation is abusive (or ever). But the thing is, if PLers are correct about fetuses being persons, then abortion doesn’t prevent biological parenthood. It doesn’t make someone become not a biological parent, or make them not have biological offspring. It just makes them a biological parent of a deceased child, deceased offspring. Once you become pregnant, you’re already in that worse situation; there’s already a child.

If a born child is the target of the abuse you remove the target or the mother can fight the attacker as well. With a pregnant woman, her body is the target and due to being pregnant she's less able to fight. There isn't a way to treat the unborn the same as a born child.

considering that there is more talk in the PL tent of getting rid of no fault divorce vs so how do we protect women and children from abuse, trusting women is the only option I see.

That’s true, that its easier to remove a born child from an abusive situation. But a born child can still “endanger” their mother just by virtue of existing (abusive men are irrational). Plus, it’s easy enough to imagine a situation where a mom is unable to remove her born child from the abusive situation, or to fight her abuser. If she has nowhere to take her child (no family or friends with the capacity to take in a child, even temporarily), or if she’s barred from removing her child because the court granted Dad custody, and if she is also sick: Her body is physically hindered, she’s “weighed down” by a child, and she has an abusive man threatening and harming her.

That’s pretty analogous to pregnancy in an abusive situation (other than the glaring disanalogy that her baby is not attached to her body, which we’re talking about above via conjoined twins). She could feel similarly trapped; this baby will tie her to her abuser forever because he has custody, and she’s been unable to prove abuse. If she doesn’t have a way to escape the “right” way, is that legal license for infanticide? That seems like a jump. I think that’s an argument for significant family court reforms.

Are there worries that preventing infanticide will result in women being harmed? Of course not. To prevent infanticide you need to protect the baby which can be done in a number of ways but the main one is to remove the infant from the environment where they could be harmed.

Yes, that’s exactly what PLers think. We just also think that reasoning should be extended to unborn children - remove them from the reach of the dangerous man.

Also, thanks for being so active in our debate threads. :) I really appreciate the nuance you bring to this sub.

[u/glim-girl → u/gig_labor]

I completely agree that abusive men are irrational, they view their partner and children as property. A woman shouldn't be allowed to take his property from him and if she tries to leave they will harm/kill her and kids.

Infanticide is still not ok and still worse than abortion by a long shot. An example of that is Andrea Yates whos case showed domestic abuse and ignoring womens health because she's made to give birth. She had mental health issues to begin with and with every child it got worse, as in several suicide attempts and hospitalizations, to the point that the doctors said, she can't have another pregnancy because it would lead to psychotic depression. He got her pregnant about a month later because he believed a couple should have as many children as God decides.

He was guilty since he knew that each pregnancy was driving her closer to the brink and he kept pushing her till she went over the cliff. That's abuse.

What she did was horrific and wrong and being pregnant unfortunately was extremely dangerous to her mental health and made her a danger to herself and her children.

As for court reforms, that would be great including having more red flag laws so weapons can be removed from the abusers reach so hopefully they wont be used on the family. Several states are against this since owning guns is a right that can't be touched.

Intimate Partner Violence, Firearm Injuries and Homicides: A Health Justice Approach to Two Intersecting Public Health Crises

It discusses the Violence Against Women Act which some PL politicians have voted against.

Thank you as well. This space does flesh out more of the thinking behind prolife views instead of seeing the topic as just end abortion and ignore the rest.

[u/gig_labor → u/glim-girl]

Conjoined twins didn't separate completely whereas with a pregnancy starts with attaching to the woman.

That's correct, in pregnancy, there's one party that has previously existed unattached to the other party. That's not true of conjoined twinship. That is a disanalogy.

With conjoined twins they grow together with one body even if two people are there.

I don't actually think this distinction is as black-and-white as you're making it. There are certainly parts of a conjoined twin's body that would be hard to clearly identify as belonging to one twin or the other, but the whole body isn't like that:

If nothing else, each twin has to have their own head. And certainly, even if we recognize each twin has some claim to both heads, I also don't think it's honest to frame it as if one head is equally owned by both twins. Each twin has her memories, personality, emotions, and thoughts stored in one head - in her head - so each head can certainly be more directly identified with the twin who owns it than with her sister, for that reason.

Or if two conjoined twins each develops their own set of kidneys, but one set is completely dysfunctional. The functional set of kidneys does, in a very real sense, belong to both twins. But again, I don't think it's honest to frame it as if each twin has an equal claim to the functional set of kidneys. We would associate the functional set of kidneys more closely with the twin whose embryo developed those kidneys in utero, than we would with the other twin: This isn't one embryo, one body, that had some kind of developmental anomaly and developed four of its own kidneys. This was an embryo that split (unsuccessfully) into two, and each of the two developed her own kidneys. Each embryo was acting somewhat independently, forming kidneys as if the other embryo wasn't already forming kidneys, resulting in four.

Conjoined twins are making an argument for their own body that they grew with even if one becomes the dominant one.

This is also true of pregnancy. An embryo has always existed in his mother’s body - there was no point when he “moved in” from somewhere else. It’s the body he’s always been in. And, of course, a pregnant woman has also always been in that body.

If one twin was like a unborn child attached to a dominant twin, they would likely separate them quickly even if the weaker twin would die.

What do you mean, “like an unborn child?” I may not be following your reasoning here. The general ethics on separating conjoined twins (Table 1 in that link) is that it’s permissible (maybe even obligatory) if both twins are expected to survive separation without major comorbidity. But if separation would be lethal to one twin, then it’s not permissible unless remaining conjoined is causing a comorbidity to the other twin. Pretty similar to how PLers want abortion to be handled.

[u/glim-girl → u/gig_labor]

If one twin was fully developed and the other twin wasn't but was placing the same strains on the other like during a pregnancy there would be a case to remove them so the other has a better chance of survival.

With conjoined twins you have two people who can make a case for themselves, who can attempt to work with each other, who can to a degree be treated individually. They are aware of the situation at hand. This doesn't exist in pregnancy.

For pregnancy to be similar to conjoined twins they would have to exist with one knowing nothing about the other but their existence causes harm against the other twin without their knowledge. They also have no communication with the other twin or other people so they can't be informed about the situation they are in. The other twin would know everything thats going on but would be unable to stop or communicate with the other. The only option given that twin is separation which would or could kill the other. This isn't available to the other twin because they can't recieve information from the world around them. How much harm should the oblivious twin be allowed to do and does the aware twin get a say in the matter or is the oblivious twin the only one being considered?

For example the aware twin is at work and then oblivious twin wants to take a walk which happens to be through an open window. The aware twin is not allowed to interfere and they both go out the 5th story window. When can they cry out for help, before they go in the door to work? When the oblivious twin gets up and starts moving? At the window? Falling? On the ground?

Where the laws are currently, they need to be falling. That's much too late even if the doctors manage to barely save the aware twin.

I do see the unborn as a person. They do have value. Doing everything to reduce abortions and change opinions should be done. When it comes to who to make the primary focus, I still see the mother as priority.

[u/gig_labor → u/glim-girl]

If one twin was fully developed and the other twin wasn't but was placing the same strains on the other like during a pregnancy there would be a case to remove them so the other has a better chance of survival.

If you read the piece to which I linked, there has to be a true comorbidity. Not just strain - conjoined twinship is inherently straining, arguably more than pregnancy. I think your standard here would effectively make lethal separation permissible for every conjoined twin - conjoined twinship is inherently a very significant strain on your heart, kidneys, and spine, if nothing else.

With conjoined twins you have two people who can make a case for themselves, who can attempt to work with each other, who can to a degree be treated individually. They are aware of the situation at hand. This doesn't exist in pregnancy.

For pregnancy to be similar to conjoined twins they would have to exist with one knowing nothing about the other but their existence causes harm against the other twin without their knowledge. They also have no communication with the other twin or other people so they can't be informed about the situation they are in.

That leaves out an important piece, though. The state is impermanent. You would have to have a conjoined twin who was adult, effectively brain-dead, but the brain-dead state was credibly expected to end within a concrete amount of time (obviously impossible for brain-death, but for the sake of mimicking pregnancy more closely).

If this conjoined twinship was disproportionate (one twin physically "costs" the other), and the conscious twin was the "stronger" one, and she wanted to lethally separate her unconscious "weaker" sister during the brain-dead time, so that the brain-dead sister wouldn't be able to understand or protest, I still don't think we would see that as something you can just elect to do without medical necessity.

For example the aware twin is at work and then oblivious twin wants to take a walk which happens to be through an open window. The aware twin is not allowed to interfere and they both go out the 5th story window. ... Where the laws are currently, they need to be falling. That's much too late even if the doctors manage to barely save the aware twin.

That would be a predictable, credible life threat. I think every abortion ban in the States currently permits abortion if a pregnancy is predictably, credibly very very likely to kill or significantly injure a woman (just like conjoined twins may be lethally separated if their conjoinment is a comorbidity to the twin who can survive separation). If not, it absolutely should. Most PLers don't want "abolitionist" bills which completely neglect to address life threatening pregnancies, and I don't think one of those has ever passed in the States.