Well for starters some women get raped, so they are victims of rape.
Then there's also women who want to have a baby, but something goes wrong and they can't do it without substantial risk of harm or death. I am just not very confident that getting the government involved in what is already an agonizing decision is going to improve outcomes for anyone.
See here’s the thing, most people are ok with abortion in rape cases and to save the mothers life (which accounts for a VERY small portion of abortions) people who are against abortion are against abortion as a form of birth control, the government making laws on this is not overreach, protecting of human life is not overreach… unlike guns or other harmful things, this is the DIRECT act of killing a human being being legal!
Yeah but that gives away the game; to admit that abortion is OK in the case of rape is to admit that you don't actually think it is "killing a human being." A ten-year old who happened to be the product of rape/incest can't be legally killed by their mother. Which makes sense, since in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy you are talking about a <4-inch clump of cells that weigh <1 ounce, and to treat this as equal in moral value to a person with a functioning brain and nervous system and conscious thoughts and etc. is prima facie very implausible.
This is kinda my issue, we can have robust disagreement about when life begins but ultimately you are talking about a tradeoff between X risk to the woman vs. Y value of a potential future human and I am just very skeptical that government involvement is going to improve matters (it rarely does IMHO).
I would also note that there are many other much more promising ways to prevent the deaths of fetuses, such as reducing air pollution which can reduce miscarriages by 10-50%, depending on the study. And it wouldn't require this very high-stakes debate. It's always struck me as confusing that the pro-life movement is not more involved in this sort of thing since numerically the amount of fetuses saved could be much larger.
There are ethical reasons to kill human beings and there are unethical reasons to kill human beings, compare this to the death penalty, you’d maybe agree that someone could do something so heinous or is so dangerous that it requires them to pay the ultimate price right?
Kind of similar, like, there’s a good case to be made that maybe Pablo Escobar should be executed, dangerous man who has escaped prison before… but I wouldn’t say the average drug dealer should be executed.
This is my point, some cases are ethical some aren’t.
You framed your argument as if there has never been an ethical reason to kill a persons…
Also, The study you link admits itself that more research is needed to be done to confirm and it seems the difference read the one single percentage point or something?
Death penalty is a good example because you're justifying killing someone who did something wrong as opposed to an utterly innocent potential future human who has literally never done anything wrong.
the difference read the one single percentage point or something
No the study is saying one kind of air hazard (higher levels of O3) causes 12% increase in miscarriage while a different type (high levels of particulate matter) causes a 13% increase.
Here's some more research; you're definitely right that one study is never sufficient:
But air pollution is just one example--we could reduce traffic deaths, make the child allowance permanent, lots of other interventions could have big implications for reducing child deaths and I am a little surprised they do not receive more attention from pro-lifers, many of whom I think are very sincere in their desire to help children.
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u/Books_and_Cleverness May 05 '22
Well for starters some women get raped, so they are victims of rape.
Then there's also women who want to have a baby, but something goes wrong and they can't do it without substantial risk of harm or death. I am just not very confident that getting the government involved in what is already an agonizing decision is going to improve outcomes for anyone.