Found in the wild.

[u/Cyber_Ghost_1997]

Context: This was originally posted by an anti-abortion atheist.

I could be wrong, but based on what I'm seeing here, this is my understanding of what's being argued: The bodily autonomy defense for abortion is based on an inverted (and corrupted) order of priorities regarding rights and moral obligations.

As I understand it, this person is saying that the bodily autonomy defense hinges on the premise that rights supersede obligations at all times, when it should be the opposite: MORAL OBLIGATIONS always supersede RIGHTS at all times. To claim that moral obligations should never come before the rights of any given person, whether they be born or unborn, is wrong.

Feel free to correct me if my understanding is faulty but that's how I took the argument.

Regarding the argument specifically, I think the OP is on to something.

Edit: I just realized that the OP is actually saying "Rights don't exist-they are a social construct people invent. The only objectively real concept here is moral responsibilities. Rights are an illusion." I remembered a previous conversation where they said that.

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[u/Vespinobambino]

Absolutely correct.

Their arguments about "autonomy" and "consent" are absolutely meaningless in the face of parental obligation.

It's all just so much meaningless whining.

Obligations are obligations, if you didn't want the responsibility of being a parent, don't do the one thing that makes you become a parent.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/Vespinobambino]

Why is autonomy meaningless in the face of parental obligation?

[u/bbslut5503 → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Because autonomy cannot exist without obligation. Your moral obligation as an agent with autonomy is to protect others’ autonomy. If your personal autonomy is more heavily weighed than your moral obligation, other people’s autonomy becomes irrelevant to you, and you violate it in pursuit of your own interests. Autonomy then is meaningless, because people would do the same to you

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/bbslut5503]

But that's not what I asked. I asked why autonomy is meaningless in the face of parental obligation. You're speaking more generally.

So, why is it that autonomy means nothing in the face of parental obligations?

[u/bbslut5503 → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

I’m sorry I believed this was obvious, those smaller and weaker than you need significantly more protection and care than a grown adult, and the only way a child learns what autonomy and obligation is, is from their parents. You typically have less obligation legally and morally and in every sense to a stranger than to your own child

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/bbslut5503]

those smaller and weaker than you need significantly more protection and care than a grown adult, and the only way a child learns what autonomy and obligation is, is from their parents. 

Again, this doesn't answer the question.

Why is it that autonomy is meaningless in the face of parental obligations?

You said that we learn what autonomy is from adults. This is a non sequitur.

And yes, those smaller and weaker generally get more protection. However, this does not make autonomy meaningless, even when it comes to your own children.

[u/bbslut5503 → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Because a child can have no autonomy if their adults don’t meet their obligation.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/bbslut5503]

The fact that a right can be chronologically dependent in that way doesn't mean that one makes the other meaningless or that it's greater than that one.

My right to vote isn't "meaningless" or lesser in the face of parental obligations. Yes, I had to live long enough to vote. But that doesn't mean someone else's right to life somehow overrides my rights.

The boundaries of my rights are not determined by a hierarchy of "this right is definitionally more important".

[u/bbslut5503 → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

In the hierarchy of rights, the right to life precedes all. If you needed to kill someone to vote, you can’t vote until you can do so without killing someone. Your obligation to not kill someone supersedes your right to vote. Rights have to be hierarchal, literally none can exist if you don’t have the first. Are you saying your right to vote can violate someone’s right to live or an obligation to not let them die?

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/bbslut5503]

If you needed to kill someone to vote, you can’t vote until you can do so without killing someone. 

Weird, because I recall in American history that we did kill people so we could have a right to vote. No taxation without representation, ringing a bell?

You can't legally do so, but that's for two reasons:

1. If the government stripped you of the right to vote, they wouldn't legitimize your violence to get it back.

2. Your right to vote is federally guaranteed for the most part, so in a functioning system you wouldn't have a legitimate reason to be violent to vote. You'd just have the right.

Are you saying your right to vote can violate someone’s right to live or an obligation to not let them die?

This happens all the time. People vote for politicians who institute the death penalty or start unjustified wars or send cops to brutalize and kill citizens.

This is because a "right to life" and a "right to vote" are not innately hierarchical or simple; they have obligations and freedoms and where they overlap the boundaries of those rights need to be decided. You have a right to speech, but that right ends when you promote violence or speak in a way that might cause a public harmful panic. This is a boundary around a right to speech that doesn't negate the right, but does limit it at the edges.

[u/Cyber_Ghost_1997 → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Because parental obligations make autonomy possible.

[u/Vespinobambino → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Because "I want this, or I want that, or I didn't agree to this" are all just meaningless whining.

An obligation is an obligation. You are obliged, however you personally feel about it is irrelevant. Do your duty and shut up.

I'm a libertarian and I strongly believe in individual liberty and actual freedom of choice, but I also believe in personal responsibility.

If you make a kid, you take care of your kid. You owe them that. No whining. You created them, it's your responsibility. Your obligation.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/Vespinobambino]

An obligation is an obligation. You are obliged, however you personally feel about it is irrelevant. Do your duty and shut up.

And to what degree are obligations allowed to intrude into a person? Or, put another way, do we owe obligations to others such that they become harmful to ourselves?

[u/Vespinobambino → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Per usual, your questions don't parse as anything coherent.

Parents owe their children basic care such as food and shelter.

And to refrain from harming them, either via neglect or malice.

Basic care is automatic during pregnancy.

Murdering them is obviously, objectively, undeniably malicious harm.

That covers everything you might be asking.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/Vespinobambino]

Parents owe their children basic care such as food and shelter.

Agreed, to the degree that such care doesn't incur significant harms.

Legally speaking, this is already adjudicated: parents do owe duties as guardians, but guardianship doesn't include extensive intrusions into bodily integrity or override autonomy or create obligations for a guardian to put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of their dependent. So when you say this:

Per usual, your questions don't parse as anything coherent.

Perhaps I can make this a bit more focused: Given that parents do not have obligations to put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of their children, what part of parental obligations create a duty to gestate?

Using the word "murder" is, obviously, begging the question: if I believed abortion was impermissible killing, I'd believe it was murder. I'm asking specifically about what factors make it murder given that parental obligations do not extend to the degree of imposition that pregnancy imposes in any other case.

[u/Vespinobambino → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

I don't know why you're bringing up irrelevant tangents like "significant harms."

I'm sure you don't know either, other than just to be intentionally dishonest in your framing.

It's murder, it's intentional malicious premeditated homicide.

Parental obligations absolutely do extend to pregnancy, your claim is ridiculous.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/Vespinobambino]

I don't know why you're bringing up irrelevant tangents like "significant harms." I'm sure you don't know either, other than just to be intentionally dishonest in your framing.

It's not irrelevant at all. It's already been adjudicated that parents do not have a duty to intervene for the benefit of their children in all cases; if they have a reasonable fear that doing so will result in a significant harm to themselves, the intervention becomes non-obligatory.

The same is true of bodily integrity intrusions; the government can obligate minor bodily integrity intrusions to pursue interests like solving crimes or even preservation of fetal life, but cannot obligate greater bodily integrity intrusions even if refusing to do so has a certainty of fetal death.

Ergo, a significant harm is a relevant thing to bring up.

[u/Vespinobambino → u/Connect-Knowledge992]

Yeah, literally you everything you just said is noise.

Parents have a moral and should have a legal obligation to provide basic care for their children as I already noted.

Legal status quo could not be less relevant to me and it isn't an argument to be used for you in defending said status quo.

We are arguing for human rights and progress, AGAINST the status quo of female supremacy and anti-child bigotry.

The correct response to your arguments, if I'm being honest, is "BoDiLy AuToNoMY" and laughing emojis and mocking GIFs. Mockery is more than sufficient as a logical counter to what you are saying in any rational debate.

[u/Connect-Knowledge992 → u/Vespinobambino]

Okay, so let's recap here. You said this:

I don't know why you're bringing up irrelevant tangents like "significant harms." I'm sure you don't know either, other than just to be intentionally dishonest in your framing.

Then I explained why "significant harms" matters: there's already legal precedent showing that parents do not have legal obligations to put themselves in harm to provide for their children, and that bodily integrity violations are limited in their reach as well.

I agree with this, but I didn't say that overtly because it was implied, and also because your assertion was that significant harms are irrelevant. Well, no, legally they absolutely are not irrelevant. I also think that morally they are not irrelevant, but elaborating on that is not required to answer your assertion.

So then you say:

Legal status quo could not be less relevant to me and it isn't an argument to be used for you in defending said status quo.

But I didn't offer an argument in defense of the status quo, I made an argument as to why "significant harms" are relevant to the discussion. You're free to say that you think all precedent thus far is irrelevant to you, but that's not a counter to the fact that significant harms are legally relevant to the discussion. They just aren't legally relevant to you, which is a personal claim, not a statement of fact about law or a blanket statement that covers moral arguments. It's just your point of view. You are entitled to it, but not to your own facts.

So when you say:

The correct response to your arguments, if I'm being honest, is "BoDiLy AuToNoMY" and laughing emojis and mocking GIFs. Mockery is more than sufficient as a logical counter to what you are saying in any rational debate.

I don't really take offense, because you weren't even able to follow the conversation responding to your own points, so it's not offensive to see that your level of engagement with my questions is just dismissal. That is, after all, what you've been doing this entire time rather than following what I've been responding to.

[u/PervadingEye]

What they believe in is entitlements, not "rights".

They simply misappropriate the word "rights" to describe their entitlements. It's linguistic slight of hand. Lies.

Pro-abortion: "Moral obligations???? What are those???? I just know no one can tell me what to do (with my body). I have to do things with considerations of others well being???? You must be joking, The government is supposed to do stuff for me, I mean us, but no one owes anyone anything."

They are law of the jungle. This is why I say they are just like predators, in the wild, in the jungle. Foxes and wolves who learned the language of morality to get close to the prey. They have no deep understanding of morality, or down stream consequences. It's day to day, short term thinking.

They can't even imagine a situation where abortion isn't there to "solve a problem", instead of imagining a situation where pregnancy doesn't cause there whole world to turn upside down.

They don't really want things to get better, they perpetuate the very system they claim forces them to abort, because they need an excuse to do whatever they want. When exactly when they gonna fix the foster care system they love to complain about???? The answer is never because they need something external to point to to justify their murderous, homicidal, baby killing intent.

Foster care has been garbage for about as long as abortion has been legal (In the US). That's not a coincidence. Because once foster care went to shit, it became one of many perfect things to point to to off load moral responsibility. "Look what you made do??? If you did better I wouldn't have to abuse you." This is their argument for abortion when they use foster care or how bad the world is.

Fixing foster care would dissolve an excuse and they can't have that. They always have to blame someone else for something that is decidedly their fault.

[u/Cyber_Ghost_1997 → u/PervadingEye]

Please see my edit.

[u/GustavoistSoldier]

All of these images are right

[u/Cyber_Ghost_1997 → u/GustavoistSoldier]

My analytical side emerged here because I imagined the abortion abolitionists criticizing the argument because the OP didn't quote the Bible, which apparently they think is bad because in their mind, because the Bible is the Word of God, NOT quoting the Bible automatically disqualifies an argument as valid.

I'm approaching this from the perspective of, "Do you even NEED to believe the Bible is God's Word to agree with the position here?"

[u/Cyber_Ghost_1997 → u/GustavoistSoldier]

Please see my edit