Recently, I was involved in a discussion that included the following exchange:
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Logic&Reason Timothy Griffy • 4 days ago
You are correct that the notion of contractual agreement prior to fertilization is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD. That was my point ... to your even more absurd statement that the fetus should be
abortedkilled because it didn’t receive prior “consent”. That is not how life works. Ever.Perhaps this thoughtful essay written by physicians will answer all your questions regarding this deadly serious topic of pro-life vs pro-death:
http://www.physiciansforlif...
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Timothy Griffy Logic&Reason • 4 days ago
No, the zygote does not need to draw up a contract with the woman before implanting itself into the uterine line, even if it were possible. The same is true with your even more absurd notion about the sperm and egg having a binding agreement.
Here are some questions for you. Is rape wrong? How about slavery? Or kidnapping especially for ransom or to further a criminal enterprise? Is it wrong to subject someone to involuntary medical/scientific experimentation? Or to force someone to donate blood, tissue or organs? If you acknowledge these things are wrong, you acknowledge that using someone's body without consent is wrong. And suddenly my comment isn't so dumb after all.
Unfortunately, I was not able to answer Logic&Reason before comments in that discussion were closed. I did, however go to the Physicians for Life link. I can say that the article does not answer the point I was making in my comments and it did not even try. It’s not that the article does not address bodily autonomy; it’s that it fails to address the core issue of the bodily autonomy argument. I would say I was surprised or disappointed, but that would highly exaggerate my expectations. The slave mongers cannot directly address that core issue, and so would rather just avoid it.
The core issue of the bodily autonomy argument, whether expressed as in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s "A Defense of Abortion" or as in the argument I made in "Why Abortion is Permissible", is this: Even if we grant the prenate has the right to life, the right to life does not grant the right to use someone’s body or body parts to keep them alive. This is why we are never obligated to give blood, tissue, or organs to anyone, even if they will die without the donation. For all its talk about pro-choice advocates trying to duck issues, the slave mongers at Physicians for Life themselves duck this core issue in favor of responding with a bevy of irrelevant questions.
Looked at more closely, the questions Physicians for Life want slave mongers to press on pro-choice advocates are not merely diversions, they have already been answered—usually over and over again. I will deal with the other arguments this article poses in later posts. In this post, I will deal with section nine of their argument, where they are attempting to deal with the pro-choice argument “Every woman has the right to control their own body.”
The first argument the slave mongers make is the standard one: Yes, women have the right to control their own body, but the “preborn child” has rights that are violated by abortion. Talk about asked and answered. Even presuming the “preborn child” does have rights, they are not violated if the pregnant person has an abortion because “preborn children” do not have the right to use a person’s body or its parts even for life itself. How do we know this? Because we do not have this right, even though we clearly have the right to life.
Physicians for Life is clearly unable to directly deal with this fact, because everything that follows are exercises in diversionary tactics. First, the article rhetorically asks what kind of control the bodily autonomy argument is about and answers, “A control that allows for violence against another human being …” as if it were the pregnant person who is the aggressor. But what we are in fact talking about is the right to not have our bodies used without consent. Insofar as this allows for violence, it is in defense of that right.
The next argument deserves to be quoted in full so we can tease out exactly how these slave mongers totally ignore the real life situations of people with vulvas:
“OR…What about REPEAT abortions? There are roughly 1.4 million abortions yearly in the U.S. (Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm); over one pregnancy in four is aborted. About 43% of abortion patients have had at least one previous abortion, 10% are on their third abortion, and 5% are on at least their fourth abortion. Of about 4300 abortions per day (U.S.), over 210 women are getting their fourth or more abortion per day. If they have the right to control their own bodies, why can’t they control their sexual activities?”
I have yet to come across a slave monger that does not resort to slut-shaming sooner or later, and Physicians for Life is no exception. Notice how the entire burden of not getting pregnant is placed entirely on people with vulvas. Last I heard, it still takes two to tango. People with penises are not expected to control their sexual activities, leaving it to the people with vulvas to be the gatekeepers of sex. And considering that elsewhere the article the slave mongers argue against abortion even in cases of rape, we have to wonder why they even bring up the subject in the first place. The answer is simple: the slave mongers do not want people with vulvas to have control over their own lives, not when it comes to sex, and not when it comes to pregnancy. Forced gestation is a means of controlling both.
But that’s an argument for another day. For now, let’s just look at the cover-up argument.
If we look at it purely from a rights perspective, the answer to the question, “What about REPEAT abortions?” is “What about them?” There is no limit to the number of rapists one is allowed to defend themselves from before one is required to allow themselves to be raped. Likewise, there is no limit to the number of unwanted pregnancies one is allowed to abort before one is required to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
Nevertheless, I think it is safe to say that having several abortions is unwise. An abortion is costly in terms of money and time if nothing else. It would be better and cheaper to prevent unwanted pregnancies to begin with. So we should take a look at why some people might have four or more abortions. And when we do that, we find that much of the time, it is because of policies that the slave mongers themselves press.
Take, for example, Cherisse’s story, found in the New York magazine article, “My Abortion.” She had three abortions and said:
I looked in the Chicago Yellow Pages and made an appointment at what I thought was an abortion clinic. They sent a black woman in to talk to me. She told me that she and her husband hadn’t wanted their child at first and tried to convince me to keep mine. Then they showed me a video of a D&E (dilation and evacuation). They assumed I was on food stamps. At that time, I didn’t know how to articulate why that was offensive. I was a 28-year-old paralegal—not the stereotype. They sent me home with a rattle and onesie. This was in 2002, not some bygone era. They sent me to another place to get a free ultrasound. The technician said, “If you have an abortion now, you’ll rupture your uterus and won’t be able to have children in the future.” I had no idea what was true. I didn’t want to regret not being able to have children. I went ahead and had my son. Those people weren’t there after I lost my job and couldn’t afford my COBRA, utilities, rent, food. Since then, I’ve had three abortions. I didn’t understand my body. I had no information. After the third time, I ran into a reproductive-justice advocate who finally taught me how to understand my fertility.
It goes without saying that comprehensive sex education would have made it far less likely that Cherisse would have needed three abortions. Also notice the crisis pregnancy center Cherisse went to also did not provide her with the information she needed to understand her fertility. It is the slave mongers themselves who generally oppose comprehensive sex education, at most offering abstinence-only models that have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Finally, note that Cherisse only got the information she needed from a reproductive-justice advocate, someone who is presumably pro-choice. Between the CPC and the reproductive-justice advocate, who helped Cherisse the most in avoiding an unwanted pregnancy and prevented another abortion?
Let’s dig more deeply. Around half the people who seek an abortion live in poverty, about four times the national poverty rate.i Forty percent of people seeking an abortion report having trouble accessing contraceptives.ii In The Turnaway Study, about five percent of the study’s respondents reported being in an abusive relationship; about half of them reported the abusive relationship was the primary reason for wanting an abortion.iii Reproductive coercion, including birth control sabotage, is also hardly uncommon.
With these kinds of conditions, it is not hard to see why some people need abortions, including multiple abortions. And particularly when it comes to the provision of contraceptives, we again see it is the slave mongers themselves have the greater share of the blame. As Katha Pollit points out, not one major slave monger organization advocates making contraceptives more readily available.iv Moreover, slave monger organizations also tend to be against the most effective methods of birth control such as the Pill on the grounds that they are supposedly abortifacients.v In this respect, it is noteworthy that Physicians for Life is not just silent about making contraceptives more readily available, most of its articles on contraceptives, with the exception of Natural Family Planning, are negative.
It is this negative attitude toward birth control that provides a key clue to the formulation of the final question in this so-called rebuttal: “If they have the right to control their own bodies, why can’t they control their sexual activities?” More than anything else, this question shows that these slave mongers are not simply against pregnant people having abortions, they are against people with vulvas having what they consider unauthorized sex.
The slave mongers next diversion is to ask why drugs and prostitution are not also on the pro-choice agenda. In fairness, I should point out this probably reflects the age of the document. Marijuana legalization, for example, is supported by 67% of Americans today. Similar percentages favor drug treatment over prosecution and think easing sentences for nonviolent drug offenses is a good thing; decriminalization if not outright legalization is probably not that far away. Support for legalizing prostitution is now at about 49% of Americans. Certainly this argument would backfire if a slave monger used it on me, since I do support the legalization of both drugs and prostitution.
Regardless, using drugs and prostitution, along with child support laws,vi to argue against abortion is a distraction from the core issue. With particular regard to drugs and prostitution, the only similarity is that the right to bodily autonomy is involved. But otherwise, we are not talking about comparing apples to oranges; it is more like comparing apples to moon rocks. One could plausibly argue against legalizing drugs and prostitution despite the right to bodily autonomy on the grounds of public health, for example. Whether such an argument will fly is, of course, a different matter. The point is that it is entirely possible to be against legalizing drugs and prostitution while maintaining abortion should be legal.
If that does not work, the next diversion is to say that pro-choice advocates say that the prenate is part of the pregnant person’s body, and then make arguments that it is not. I am not sure what they think this argument is supposed to buy them. Supposedly, by being aggressive enough, the slave monger should be able to get the pro-choice advocate to retreat to a position where the fetus is different because of the prenate’s dependency to the pregnant person for survival, at which point the slave monger can say this is also true of infants, comatose patients, etc. Perhaps they think a stalemate is enough to win the day.
This argument may also reflect the age of the document. However, as a blanket statement, saying “Pro-abortionists say that the unborn child is part of the mother's body” simply is not true. I do not say this, and based on my admittedly anecdotal experience, it is relatively rare for a pro-choice advocate to use this as an argument. I see this particular argument as weak, too easily refuted, and irrelevant.
What this argument does not do is address the core issue: whether the prenate has the right to the pregnant person’s body. Yes, infants and comatose patients are dependent on others for their survival. But infants and comatose patients do not implant themselves into someone’s body. They do not dampen anyone's immune system. They do not tap anyone's blood supply to obtain nutrients and oxygen. They do not alter anyone's brain chemistry. They do not build their bones by taking the calcium from anyone's bones and teeth. They do not release their wastes back into anyone’s body. They do not cause the symptoms and side effects of pregnancy. They do not endanger anyone’s life and health. The prenate does do all these things to pregnant people. In theory, all of them might be entitled to care. But none of them have the right to do the things the prenate does to the pregnant person.
The next deflection is to have the slave monger ask why they oppose TRAP laws supposedly put in place to ensure the health and safety of the pregnant person having an abortion. It is a diversion because it has nothing to do with the core issue of whether the prenate has the right to the pregnant person’s body. Pro-choice advocates oppose them because, as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists ruled, they are unnecessary and exist solely to limit access to abortion.
The next tactic is to press the pro-choice advocate on whether an abortion is permissible no matter how trivial the reason, and if not, what their limits are. Apparently the point is to paint the advocate as an extremist (even though the organization does not even permit a rape exception, making them extremists even among slave mongers) or set up some kind of “gotcha” argument. Here, they are likely to find a range of responses. Thomson would say that an abortion would be impermissible if it is inconsistent with Minimally Decent Samaritanism, citing a hypothetical pregnant person wanting an abortion in the seventh month to clear the way for a trip to Europe. I would imagine some people would say sex selection as a reason for having an abortion would be positively indecent and should not be allowed on similar grounds.
In my account, abortion is permissible because one is allowed to use any means necessary to prevent or end the nonconsensual use of one’s body. On this account, all that matters is that one’s body is being used without consent. Does it matter why the person does not consent? No. Consider the examples I used to build my case: rape, slavery, kidnapping, involuntary scientific experimentation, and forced donation of bodily parts. Does it really matter why you do not want to have sex? Does it really matter why you do not want to do a job for someone? Does it really matter why you do not want to accompany someone elsewhere? Does it really matter why you do not wish to participate in a scientific experiment? Does it really matter why you do not want to give someone blood, tissue, or organs? No. All that matters is that you do not want to do it and any attempt to force you to do these things allows you to use any necessary means prevent or end these things from happening to you. The reason you do not want to do them is simply none of my business.
We could also look at it another way. Let’s say you ask me why I am writing this essay, and I say it's because I do not like Physicians for Life or some other utterly trivial reason. Would you say that the trivial reason I have for writing this essay invalidates my freedom of the press? Of course not, because our rights are not invalidated based on our reasons for exercising them. Why should the right to not have your body used without consent be any different?
For the final argument of this section, the article would have the slave monger press the pro-choice advocate whether they support abortion throughout the nine months, for whatever reason, allowing minors to have an abortion without parental knowledge, and be funded by taxpayers. The reasoning appears to be an attempt to find some chink in the armor of bodily autonomy they can try exploiting. Failing that, it appears to be an attempt to paint the advocate as an extremist (again, this is an organization that permits abortion only in cases of an imminent threat to the mother’s life, and even then requires some of the riskiest methods of doing even that).
Again, we are liable to find a range of answers depending on the advocate. In fact, my experience in the abortion debate has shown me there is enough variety where pro-choice advocates stand on these sorts of questions that I will not even pretend to speak for anyone but myself.
Let’s take the famous though nonexistent ninth month abortion. Abortions performed after twenty-one weeks gestation are exceedingly rare, and done for extreme fetal abnormality or for serious threat’s to the pregnant person’s life or health. That does not stop the slave mongers from harping on the subject as it were if the typical case. The reason is simple: it heightens the emotional impact both at the thought the fetus being ripped apart and the supposed callousness of the pregnant person for waiting so long. Physicians for Life wants slave mongers to press how late the pro-choice advocate will allow an abortion to set up a slippery slope argument that asks why not earlier.
In fact, it was in anticipation of such questions that I considered post-viability abortions in my essay “Why Abortion is Permissible.” I concluded that nothing has essentially changed post-viability that would give the fetus the right to use the pregnant person’s body without consent. Nevertheless, viability does open options that suggest an abortion may not be necessary to end the nonconsensual use of the pregnant person’s body. I did not come to a definitive conclusion here, saying only the pregnant person need not incur significant cost, let alone take heroic measures to avoid killing the fetus when ending the pregnancy. This means an abortion would still be permissible until other options such as inducing labor or performing a C-section is significantly less costly. If that makes me an extremist, so be it.
The case of whether a minor should be required to have parental consent for an abortion is the only part of the abortion debate where I can genuinely see both sides of the argument. After all, the minor’s guardian will be liable for the costs including, God forbid, those incurred if something goes horribly wrong with the abortion. However, there could also be valid reasons minors might fear informing their parent(s) they are pregnant (e.g., being kicked out of their home). In a perfect world, the minor’s fears would always be unfounded and minor and parent would work together to find the best solution for their particular case. However, until we do have such a world, I have to side with the minor and not require parental consent for the abortion.
I can definitively say that I think taxpayers should cover the cost of an abortion, particularly for those who would otherwise not be able to afford them. Ideally, we would have universal health care covering the cost for everyone, but I am dealing with the present system. This is a simple calculation of comparative costs. The Turnaway Study makes it clear that pregnant people who are turned away from having an abortion have poorer outcomes in terms of both health and finances. Their children also tend to have health and developmental problems. In turn, this is going to wind up costing society a lot more than if it had covered the cost of an abortion.
In this review of Physicians for Life’s arguments against the bodily autonomy argument, we find that it never addresses the core issue: whether the prenate has the right to use the pregnant person’s body without consent. Instead, it only makes diversionary arguments meant to keep the discussion anywhere but the fundamental issue of the abortion debate. They literally present nothing new that has not already been addressed by pro-choice advocates.
In the next post, I will deal with the article’s arguments on prenatal personhood and the morality of forcing one’s religious views on society.
Updated 6 Nov 2020.
iFoster, Diana Greene. The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion (p. 20). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
iiFoster, The Turnaway Study, (pp. 52-53).
iiiFoster, The Turnaway Study, (p. 231).
ivPollitt, Katha. Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (p. 123). Picador. Kindle Edition.
vPollitt, Pro, (p. 123).
viI have had slave mongers try to use the requirement that fathers pay child support as the equivalent of forced gestation, only for me to respond that one unjust law does not justify another unjust law. While I do believe child support laws as presently constituted are unjust, and I also believe there are overlaps between being required to pay child support and forced gestation, they are hardly equivalent. For one thing, fathers will never be required to give even so much as a drop of blood to their child, even if the child needs it to live. For another, due process is still required before the father can be made to pay child support.
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