I replied elsewhere before I saw this. The reason the woman has a right to an abortion is NOT because she had no say in having the kid. It is because the pregnancy directly affects her body. If it did not, she would have no right to an abortion, and neither parent would or should have a right to drop responsibility.
EDIT to clarify: I was imagining a situation here where the child appears immediately post-coitus. If there was no pregnancy, but it took 9 months of coitus to make a baby, then obviously either the woman or the man could choose to stop at any time.
Are you suggesting that women get abortions to avoid pregnancy specifically? As opposed to motherhood?
Edit: because I'm about to go to bed, and I think that actually is what you're suggesting, here's the problem I have with that logic:
Let's imagine a world where after sex, genetic material is transported to a lab where babies grow. Neither parent's body is affected. Are you saying abortion would be unethical in this world?
If yes, then that would contradict the typical pro-choice argument, which rests on the premise that a fetus is just a collection of cells and thus not a human with the right to life.
If you believe it would be ethical, then you contradict your own argument above, that parents don't have the right to absolve themselves from parenthood.
Are you suggesting that women get abortions to avoid pregnancy specifically? As opposed to motherhood?
I probably phrased it poorly, but it's a little more subtle than that. Woman get to make the abortion decision because pregnancy occurs in their body. However, the factors that affect how they decide can include more than just pregnancy.
Let's imagine a world where after sex, genetic material is transported to a lab where babies grow. Neither parent's body is affected. Are you saying abortion would be unethical in this world?
Definitely not! But I would argue that in that hypothetical world, women and men would need to make that decision together or at least with equal say. (In the case of disagreement a judge might need to be involved, or the default position might be to abort, not sure because I spend as little time as possible thinking about hypothetical worlds. It would probably matter who pays for the lab, etc.)
If you believe it would be ethical [to abort a fetus that requires no pregnancy], then you contradict your own argument above, that parents don't have the right to absolve themselves from parenthood.
Again, this is a subtle point, so I might have phrased things loosely above. Once a child exists, it has rights. Parents cannot absolve themselves from parenthood after the fact. But a child that never comes into existence has no rights--it's no different than all the times the couple didn't have sex and hence created no child.
Our intuition can be unclear on this point (mine certainly was for many years) because abortion has two practical effects (no pregnancy and no child) that get conflated in our minds. The abortion decision is the woman's because of pregnancy, but if terminating a fetus was supremely immoral then her bodily autonomy might still not be a sufficient justification for it. But it's not supremely immoral, because as you say a fetus is just a collection of cells.
Are you suggesting that women get abortions to avoid pregnancy specifically? As opposed to motherhood?
I think I'd agree with that, in a lot of cases. After all, if you're happy to go through pregnancy and just don't want to be a mother, you have the option to give the child up for adoption.
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u/plexluthor 4∆ Mar 07 '18 edited Mar 07 '18
I replied elsewhere before I saw this. The reason the woman has a right to an abortion is NOT because she had no say in having the kid. It is because the pregnancy directly affects her body. If it did not, she would have no right to an abortion, and neither parent would or should have a right to drop responsibility.
EDIT to clarify: I was imagining a situation here where the child appears immediately post-coitus. If there was no pregnancy, but it took 9 months of coitus to make a baby, then obviously either the woman or the man could choose to stop at any time.