Abortion in Jewish Law

I started to write a response to this comment by Limits of Language (LoL) on the A Record 102 Edition open thread, but my response got so long that I decided to make it a separate post. LoL wrote:

My suggestion is that the actual end state of a liberal and free society may not actually be the legalization of very late abortions [in the absence of medical necessity: do I have that right?] but instead that very late abortions are quite immoral and support for it is indicative of very dangerous rationalizations that also enable (other) human rights violations.

LoL is, of course, entitled to this belief, and I respect it, but it is, in the end, rooted in the notion that there comes a point when the life and personhood of the fetus takes precedence over the life and personhood of the person in whose body that fetus resides. I don’t know whether or not LoL is Christian, but, in my experience, this belief–even when held by non-religious, secular people–devolves from a Christian understanding of when life begins and what it means to be considered a fully human person. There are other traditions, also deeply rooted in a moral concern for human life and the nature of personhood, that see this issue very differently. The one I am most familiar with is the Jewish tradition.

What I am going to write below is based on my reading of two books that I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested: David M. Feldman’s Marital Relations, Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish Law (Schocken Books 1968) and Rachel Biale’s Women & Jewish Law (Schocken Books 1984). (There may be newer editions of both books; I have linked to the editions I have on my shelf.) I am going quote a little bit from Biale’s book, but for the most part I’ll be summarizing. So, for those who are interested, the relevant pages are: Biale, 223–225; Feldman, 289–294. These pages discussion what Jewish law has to say about non-therapeutic abortions, but that discussion is rooted in the “clear distinction [Jewish law makes] between the woman and her child: the woman is a living person…and anyone who…kills her [has committed a capital crime]…The fetus is not a person in this sense” because the fetus has not yet become an individual; it cannot live independently outside the womb and so is not understood to have the same status in legal or moral/ethical terms as the mother (Biale, 220).

Regarding non-therapeutic abortion, the relevant text can be found in Tractate Arakhin in the Babylonian Talmud. There, the rabbis perform a thought experiment, and I want to stress that this is a thought experiment designed to allow for a discussion about the status of the fetus, not a discussion about death-penalty policy. Imagine, they say, a pregnant woman who has been sentenced to death. Should her sentence be postponed until her child is born? Or should it be carried out immediately, essentially murdering an innocent child for her crimes?

The rabbis’ answer–and I am skipping over a good deal of discussion here–is that the sentence should be carried out immediately, unless the birth process has started, because “at this point the fetus has become ‘a separate body’ (notice, not yet an independent life!) and is no longer part of its mother’s body” (Biale 224). Why, with that exception, shouldn’t the sentence be postponed? Because

a delay between sentencing and execution is a form of torture, innui ha-din [a concept in Jewish law which prohibits] delay in carrying out the sentence [so as not to add] unwarranted anguish to the punishment. A person sentenced to execution should not be tormented psychologically by having to await and anticipate his end. (Biale 225).

In other words, respect and compassion for the doomed woman’s humanity/personhood, i.e., she should not be subjected to torture, takes precedence over respect and compassion for the fetus (as long as it has not yet descended into the birth canal). She is understood to be an individuated person; the fetus, with that one exception, is not.

There are a couple of points worth further clarification: This ruling holds only when the woman’s pregnancy is discovered after her sentence has been pronounced. If she is known to be pregnant beforehand, the sentencing itself is postponed until after the birth. “In this case, waiting is not considered innui ha-din because the woman can hope for acquittal or a lesser punishment” (Biale 225). I also don’t know what the ruling would be if the condemned woman were to ask to be allowed to give birth before being put to death, but even if the ruling were that her desire should be granted, note that it would be granted out of respect for her choice, not the status of the fetus.

Biale goes on:

The practical importance of the ruling in Arakhin is not of course for cases of execution, but for cases where the mother is in great distress due to the pregnancy. It is possible to deduce from Arakhin a general principle that a fetus may be aborted to avoid mental anguish (any condition analogous to innui ha-din or disgrace to the mother. (225)

Now, this is not to say that there is in Jewish law an argument for anything resembling what we understand when talk about a pro-choice position, much less abortion on demand right up to the moment of birth. In fact, in practice, women who follow Jewish law would need to obtain a rabbi’s permission to have an abortion. (Indeed, there is in one episode of Shtisel, which is on Netflix, a very interesting scene in which the rabbinic approach to abortion and the contemporary pro-choice approach come into conflict.) My point in writing this very long response to LoL’s comment is simply to demonstrate that there is an argument for legalizing very late term abortions—no less rooted in a moral, religious tradition than the Christian or Christological argument against the practice—that is not, as he suggests, “indicative of very dangerous rationalizations that also enable (other) human rights violations,” but is instead rooted in a deep sense of compassion and respect for the humanity of someone who is pregnant.

ETA: There is one other point that I think is worth adding about the status of the fetus in Jewish law. One of traditional Judaism’s strongest prohibitions is against violating the Sabbath. Indeed, one of the only reasons such violation is not merely permitted, but required, is in the interests of saving a life. It is important to note, therefore, that Jewish law does not simply permit, but requires one to violate that Sabbath in order to save a fetus that would otherwise die. In other words, the fact that Jewish law privileges a pregnant person over the fetus that person is carrying does not mean that Jewish law treats the fetus, as LoL said elsewhere, as “mere bits of tissue.”

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58 Responses to Abortion in Jewish Law

  1. 1
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    I don’t know whether or not LoL is Christian, but, in my experience, this belief–even when held by non-religious, secular people–devolves from a Christian understanding of when life begins and what it means to be considered a fully human person. There are other traditions, also deeply rooted in a moral concern for human life and the nature of personhood, that see this issue very differently. The one I am most familiar with is the Jewish tradition.

    There are dangers to appealing to tradition in this way.

    I know from your other writings that you feel pretty strongly that much evil in the world is justified by people’s willingness to dehumanize others. It’s a theme you often return to in the comment section. There’s a chance that you’re dehumanizing fetuses or at least some fetuses at some stage of development. I can’t actually be sure, but I don’t think you can be sure either, at least not with an appeal to religious tradition. In any case, such an argument is entirely unconvincing to an atheist like me. You’re talking right past the points LoL is making.

    I’d love to learn that it’s entirely ethical to abort an 8 month old fetus, or even a just-born baby. I want to discover that whatever it is that makes us human and worthy of moral consideration is lacking in a fetus. It would make things so much easier and erase a bunch of uncertainty and guilt. I’d like to learn the same things about cows and chickens, because I really like to eat beef, and although many religious traditions have much to say about eating meat, the all-important questions about moral implications of ending lives can’t be answered in ancient texts. I have no idea how to go about thinking of these things, but I do know that over the centuries, the sphere of beings humans care about seems to be growing and that seems to be a good thing. There may be a future where abundant material wealth affords us the ability to both prevent unwanted pregnancies and preserve the life of an unwanted fetus (this sounds super sci-fi, but so does meat grown in a vat). In such a world we may look back on abortion (and the farming of animals) as a grave injustice.

  2. 2
    Ben David says:

    Some Jewish sources that more directly address abortion, and are more commonly cited in these discussions:

    1. Whenever pregnancy or birth endanger the mother’s life, under Jewish law the baby takes on the halachic status of a “pursuer” threatening the life of another, and is killed to save the mother. Not just “late term” – even during birth itself.

    2. If a physical assault causes a pregnant woman to lose the pregnancy, damages are only assessed for the loss of the child’s life after the first trimester. Until then either the fetus does not have sufficient “personhood” or the pregnancy is not considered stable.

  3. Jeffrey,

    I confess your comment confuses me.

    There are dangers to appealing to tradition in this way.

    What dangers?

    There’s a chance that you’re dehumanizing fetuses or at least some fetuses at some stage of development. I can’t actually be sure, but I don’t think you can be sure either, at least not with an appeal to religious tradition. In any case, such an argument is entirely unconvincing to an atheist like me. You’re talking right past the points LoL is making.

    I don’t follow the logic of this at all. I am also an atheist, by the way. My point in talking about the tradition of Jewish law was not that it should be persuasive as a point of view all people should embrace; my point was simply that there are ways of thinking about the status of the fetus in relation to the status of the person who is pregnant right up to the moment of birth that are not immoral in the sense that LoL seemed to be suggesting.

    …the all-important questions about moral implications of ending lives can’t be answered in ancient texts

    Why not? I’m not arguing that those texts are, or should be considered, authoritative in any absolute sense. I’m just curious why you think answers can’t be found there. For me, for example, the Talmud’s thought experiment is not “ancient.” Rather, I think it quite aptly captures the tension between concern for fetal life and concern for the life of the person who is pregnant as a way of thinking through the choice the experiment forces one to make.

    I have no idea how to go about thinking of these things, but I do know that over the centuries, the sphere of beings humans care about seems to be growing and that seems to be a good thing.

    Do I understand you correctly to mean that you think privileging the individuated personhood of a pregnant person over the life of the fetus that person carries means not caring about the fetus as a living thing? If I read you correctly, why is that?

  4. 4
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    Do I understand you correctly to mean that you think privileging the individuated personhood of a pregnant person over the life of the fetus that person carries means not caring about the fetus as a living thing? If I read you correctly, why is that?

    Replace “living thing” with “person.” My whole point is that a late term abortion might be killing a person, and it’s just convenient to tell ourselves that such a fetus definitely isn’t a person because it makes the choice easier. I can imagine a future when technology and wealth have decreased the consequences of considering a 7 month old fetus as a person, in much the same way that previously dehumanized persons have become more humanized over time.

    I don’t think the thought experiment in the Talmud comes close to addressing when and how something becomes a person, nor how we should treat living things that aren’t persons but may be close. All you’ve done is created a boundary for a category called “person” that excludes anything that exists inside another person, and this seems incredibly arbitrary to me (the “live independly” part I’m dismissing. If I’m walking down the street and encounter a baby on the sidewalk I damn well have a duty to help her, I can’t just walk away and convince myself that the baby isn’t independent enough to count as a person). There may be something to it- maybe some day we’ll learn more about consciousness and find that it doesn’t turn on until a baby is 2 months old or something like that, but for now we haven’t even established that consciousness is essential to being a person.

  5. 5
    Grace Annam says:

    Richard:

    There are other traditions, also deeply rooted in a moral concern for human life and the nature of personhood, that see this issue very differently. The one I am most familiar with is the Jewish tradition.

    Jeffrey:

    There are dangers to appealing to tradition in this way.

    I think that you are using different senses of the word “tradition/traditions”.

    Grace

  6. 6
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    RJN,

    LoL is, of course, entitled to this belief, and I respect it, but it is, in the end, rooted in the notion that there comes a point when the life and personhood of the fetus takes precedence over the life and personhood of the person in whose body that fetus resides.

    I think that this is a rather absurd interpretation of what I said, because you make it seem like I am weighing the life of the pregnant woman or her personhood against the life or personhood of the fetus.

    Aside from the very rare case where not aborting the fetus threatens the life of the pregnant woman, which is a case that I’m not discussing*, the mother will not run a large risk to die if she brings the child to term (especially for third semester abortions that seem more dangerous than having the child). I also don’t think that finishing a pregnancy and having a child results in a loss of personhood.

    So I think that I’m not at all weighing the life/personhood of the pregnant woman against the life of the fetus, but rather, the consequences to her education/career/finances/etc vs the life/personhood of the fetus.

    * And that is often treated differently in abortion laws.

    I don’t know whether or not LoL is Christian, but, in my experience, this belief–even when held by non-religious, secular people–devolves from a Christian understanding of when life begins and what it means to be considered a fully human person.

    No, I simply think that it is rather obviously the most scientifically valid view that life/personhood doesn’t blink into existence, but rather, gradually develops. As such, I cannot justify treating a newborn fundamentally different from a fetus who is fully developed and merely waiting for the body to semi-arbitrarily go into labor.

    at this point the fetus has become ‘a separate body’ (notice, not yet an independent life!) and is no longer part of its mother’s body

    I think that the fetus already is/becomes enough of a separate body in the relevant ways while in the human body. It has it’s own brain, can sense external sensations and can interact with the outside world (for example by kicking).

    I don’t see why being inside a body makes you fully part of that body. I have poop in my colon, but it is not part of my body in the sense that my heart is part of my body. There is a relevant distinction, just like there is a relevant distinction between a fetus inside a pregnant woman and the pee in her bladder.

    Being sheltered also doesn’t make you the same as your shelter. When I step into my house, my house and I don’t become a single lifeform.

    My point in writing this very long response to LoL’s comment is simply to demonstrate that there is an argument for legalizing very late term abortions—no less rooted in a moral, religious tradition than the Christian or Christological argument against the practice—that is not, as he suggests, “indicative of very dangerous rationalizations that also enable (other) human rights violations,” but is instead rooted in a deep sense of compassion and respect for the humanity of someone who is pregnant.

    Fair enough, I do concede that point.

  7. LoL:

    So we have some basic disagreements, which we are not likely to resolve, but I do have a question. You wrote:

    I also don’t think that finishing a pregnancy and having a child results in a loss of personhood.

    Why do you think that being forced to terminate a pregnancy is a violation of a pregnant person’s human rights, essentially a violation of their personhood, but that forcing a pregnant person to give birth, which is what happens when you outlaw abortion past a certain point, is not a similar kind of violation?

    Also, you wrote this:

    As such, I cannot justify treating a newborn fundamentally different from a fetus who is fully developed and merely waiting for the body to semi-arbitrarily go into labor.

    While I realize this is a blog comment and not a fully developed essay, I note that your wording here does, in fact, erase the personhood of the person inhabiting “the body [that will go] semi-arbitrarily…into labor.” This is why I said that the position you take inevitably results in there being a moment when the life and ostensible personhood of the fetus takes precedence over the life and established personhood of the mother—and by “life” here I do not mean, simply, the act/fact of being alive, but rather everything that being alive contains: hopes, dreams, job, success, failure, socioeconomic status, etc. and etc.

    The same thing is true of this analogy:

    Being sheltered also doesn’t make you the same as your shelter. When I step into my house, my house and I don’t become a single lifeform.

    A pregnant person is not analogous to a house, unless you have removed that person’s humanity/personhood entirely. I’m not pointing this out to persuade you to change your position, which is obviously something to which you have given a lot of thought and feel deeply about. I’m pointing out because I just wish you’d be honest and say that, yes, that in your belief system there comes a point where the fetus’ status, etc. takes precedence over the status of the person who is pregnant with it.

    Jeffrey:

    My whole point is that a late term abortion might be killing a person, and it’s just convenient to tell ourselves that such a fetus definitely isn’t a person because it makes the choice easier. I can imagine a future when technology and wealth have decreased the consequences of considering a 7 month old fetus as a person, in much the same way that previously dehumanized persons have become more humanized over time.

    So, if I understand you correctly, you are wrestling with your own understanding of what “personhood” means. I’m not so sure that not seeing a fetus as having personhood—which is a term we are all tacitly agreeing to use without having fully defined it, except, I guess, for Amp in the post that he linked over in the other thread—makes the choice to abort it any “easier.” What it does, for me at least, is establish an ethical (and also legal framework) within which to think about what that choice means. You may very well decide on a different ethical framework; I just think that it’s not fair to be as dismissive of the Talmudic reasoning as you seem to me.

    All you’ve done is created a boundary for a category called “person” that excludes anything that exists inside another person, and this seems incredibly arbitrary to me (the “live independly” part I’m dismissing. If I’m walking down the street and encounter a baby on the sidewalk I damn well have a duty to help her, I can’t just walk away and convince myself that the baby isn’t independent enough to count as a person).

    A couple of question: Why do you call arbitrary the physical boundary between being inside another human being and outside another human being? What happens to the personhood of the person within which this other person resides? How is that personhood not fundamentally and irreversibly compromised by deciding that a fetus is also a person? Again, as I said above to LoL, I am not trying here to tell you what to believe or to change your mind. I am simply asking you to be honest and acknowledge that you cannot decide a fetus is a person, with whatever rights and privileges you believe come with that status, without compromising, if not entirely eliminating, the personhood of the human being who is pregnant.

    Also, regarding the phrase “independent life,” you’re reading it to mean something other than what the Talmud intends, which is just that a fetus which is not yet born is not breathing on its own, etc. and a born baby—all else being equal—is.

  8. 8
    Grace Annam says:

    Limits of Language:

    I think that this is a rather absurd interpretation of what I said, because you make it seem like I am weighing the life of the pregnant woman or her personhood against the life or personhood of the fetus.
    Aside from the very rare case where not aborting the fetus threatens the life of the pregnant woman, which is a case that I’m not discussing*, the mother will not run a large risk to die if she brings the child to term (especially for third semester abortions that seem more dangerous than having the child).

    So you’re okay with making the pregnant person’s risk assessment for them? Even when their risk assessment differs from yours? Because, note, that’s what you’ve just done. You have simplified all the myriad risks of pregnancy down to “death”, and then asserted that a 1% chance of death is an acceptable risk, which is a trivially easy decision to make when it’s not your life on the line.

    Here, I have a d100. Poof, you’re pregnant. Which scenario seems better to you?

    (1) You get to decide. You get to choose choose (a) a medical procedure which carries little risk, or (b) a nine-month experience which will be randomly determined, but may include bouts of nausea, limitation of physical activity, unpredictable hormonal changes, changes to the connective tissues in your body, and one or more randomly-selected medical problems, some of which require extensive medical care and/or bedrest. At the end, I roll the d100, and if the dice come up buckshot, you die. If the dice don’t come up buckshot, then your body is changed forever in ways to be determined by another few rolls of the dice, ways which could include diabetes, depression, hypertension, and other conditions which can be life-threatening for a long time, and can have a permanent effect on your life. Also, you’re legally and financially responsible for the safety and welfare of an infant whom you don’t want, who will be given to you, for the next eighteen years.

    (2) A randomly-selected panel of judges gets to decide for you between a and b.

    Maybe making it explicitly pregnancy, when you yourself can’t actually get pregnant, even on purpose, might not make it immediate enough. So, instead, imagine a scenario where b is that you get a full-body tattoo during those nine months, the nature of the tattoo to be selected at random. At the end I roll the d100. If the dice come up buckshot you die, and if they don’t you have to drink a randomly selected substance from a selection where some of them can induce permanent damage, and you’re made legally and financially responsible for the care of a litter of puppies, of a breed you dislike, with the legal provision that if any of them are harmed because of something a randomly-selected judge rules you could reasonably have foreseen, you will serve a prison sentence.

    I’m not speaking to the question of fetal personhood. Set that aside. I’m just trying to illustrate, because you have minimized this extremely in your analysis, why this might seem like a big decision, for the people on whom the consequences actually fall.

    Those consequences will never fall on me; I can’t get pregnant. And yet, I am able to see clearly that a decision between abortion and attempting childbirth is not merely a decision between a tiny risk of complications and a small chance of death, but, rather, a much, much more complex and weighty decision. It’s bizarre to me that the ability to muster this level of empathy is not nearly universal.

    No, I simply think that it is rather obviously the most scientifically valid view that life/personhood doesn’t blink into existence, but rather, gradually develops.

    That seems likely, but it’s irrelevant, because the decision to be made does not exist on a continuum; it is binary; there is no partial termination of a pregnancy. And so we have to draw a line, where on one side of the line the pregnant person gets to make that decision, and on the other side, they don’t. You can argue that fetal personhood matters in determining the location of that line, but then you have to decide, in a binary fashion, when it matters enough to flip the switch.

    I think that the fetus already is/becomes enough of a separate body in the relevant ways while in the human body.

    And if you could harmlessly teleport it out of the pregnant person into the neonatal care unit, while reverting the body of the pregnant person to its pre-pregnant state, this might matter. But it turns out that the process of growing the fetus has consequences on the pregnant person apart from the risk of death, and getting the fetus out of the pregnant person is a risky, painful process with irreversible impacts on the pregnant person. If you’re going to do someone else’s cost/benefit analysis, for heaven’s sake, include ALL of the costs and benefits.

    I don’t see why being inside a body makes you fully part of that body. I have poop in my colon, but it is not part of my body in the sense that my heart is part of my body.

    And if the process of getting the “poop” out of your colon involved prolonged pain, tearing your flesh, and various medical risks including death, would you consider the “poop” to be more fully part of your body? If the “poop” could not be extracted from your body without cutting through your abdominal muscles, would the “poop” seem more like an internal organ, even if it were one which is ultimately designed to be expelled, and less like “poop”?

    Being sheltered also doesn’t make you the same as your shelter. When I step into my house, my house and I don’t become a single lifeform.

    These analogies are astounding. You appear to have a bizarrely naïve understanding of the process of childbirth. It’s more involved than sitting on the toilet, and your analysis should probably reflect that.

    Grace

  9. 9
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    RJN

    To sum up the way I see things now, I absolutely see the pregnant person as a person, I also see the late term fetus as maybe a person, but I’m not really sure. But the math isn’t so simple as “Actual person’s rights trump those of maybe-a-person.” The consequences of an abortion are more dire to the possible person than carrying the fetus to term is for the pregnant person. What’s right and wrong here depends on how likely it is you think a particular fetus is a person or being that deserves moral consideration vs how much harm is done to a mother who wishes to abort a late term fetus but isn’t allowed to. I don’t think this is an easy calculation, but I think it’s wrong to use religious tradition to dismiss the fetus as a person altogether.

  10. 10
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    Grace says,

    I think that you are using different senses of the word “tradition/traditions”.

    Probably, but if so, maybe you can help me understand how RJN’s use of “tradition” has anything to do with LoL’s claim that late term abortions are immoral. The tradition he appeals to may provide an ethical framework within which late term abortions are OK, but I’m not really sure why anyone should accept an appeal to any particular tradition- especially since “tradition” has been used to justify dehumanization in the past. It’s easy to say my tradition is a compassionate one if my tradition dehumanizes the people it harms.

  11. 11
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    So you’re okay with making the pregnant person’s risk assessment for them?

    The law does this to individuals all the time. I agree with Sebastian H from the other thread, when it comes to abortion, people are selectively libertarian (on both sides).

  12. 12
    Kate says:

    My point in talking about the tradition of Jewish law was not that it should be persuasive as a point of view all people should embrace; my point was simply that there are ways of thinking about the status of the fetus in relation to the status of the person who is pregnant right up to the moment of birth that are not immoral in the sense that LoL seemed to be suggesting.

    In a pluralistic society, we need to accept that sometimes things we think are wrong will still be legal. Third trimester abortions only happen when something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with a pregnancy and/or the life of a pregnant person. In such situations, it is vital in a free society that people be allowed to make decisions about their own lives, especially their bodies, in a way that is consistent with their morals. Richard is explaining one moral tradition that is in conflict with dominant Christian traditions in the U.S.. Laws that would not allow the pregnant person’s health (not just life) to be placed above the fetus would violate the rights of religious Jewish people to make decisions in accordance with the dictates of their consciences at one of the most harrowing points in their lives. There might sometimes be compelling reasons to force people to violate the tenets of their religions in their personal lives, but the argument @9, because of the points I’ve added emphasis to in the quote below, does not even come close.

    To sum up the way I see things now, I absolutely see the pregnant person as a person, I also see the late term fetus as maybe a person, but I’m not really sure. But the math isn’t so simple as “Actual person’s rights trump those of maybe-a-person.” The consequences of an abortion are more dire to the possible person than carrying the fetus to term is for the pregnant person. What’s right and wrong here depends on how likely it is you think a particular fetus is a person or being that deserves moral consideration vs how much harm is done to a mother who wishes to abort a late term fetus but isn’t allowed to. I don’t think this is an easy calculation, but I think it’s wrong to use religious tradition to dismiss the fetus as a person altogether.

    With that much uncertainty, I don’t see how you can feel justified in legally compelling people to act in contradiction to their deeply held beliefs.

  13. 13
    Kate says:

    So you’re okay with making the pregnant person’s risk assessment for them?

    The law does this to individuals all the time.

    Examples that are actually, reasonably comparable to forcing people into the risk of giving birth against their will?

  14. Jeffrey,

    I find your comment @9 utterly bewildering. Likely this is a result of your confusion and uncertainty on this issue. Some questions:

    I absolutely see the pregnant person as a person, I also see the late term fetus as maybe a person, but I’m not really sure.

    What does “maybe a person” mean? Or did you mean “I also maybe see the late term fetus as a person?” The difference matters because it has a lot to do with understanding precisely what you’re “not really sure” about.

    But the math isn’t so simple as “Actual person’s rights trump those of maybe-a-person.” The consequences of an abortion are more dire to the possible person than carrying the fetus to term is for the pregnant person.

    Unless of course the pregnant person were to die during childbirth, which, as Grace has said elsewhere, is an easy-to-dismiss risk when you are not the pregnant person and/or can never be a pregnant person.

    More to the point, though: here, as well, I find it difficult to know what you mean by “possible person.” Is “possible” an expression of your own doubt or are you locating that possibility, that potentiality, somewhere in the nature of a fetus’ existence. In other words, are you saying that a fetus, because it might one day be born and become a child, is a potential person and, because of that potentiality, therefore has rights that at some point might outweigh those of the person who is pregnant with it?

    What’s right and wrong here depends on how likely it is you think a particular fetus is a person or being that deserves moral consideration vs how much harm is done to a mother who wishes to abort a late term fetus but isn’t allowed to.

    Who ever said that a fetus does not deserve moral consideration? More to the point, you have here asked precisely the question that the Talmud’s thought experiment was designed to explore.

    I’m not asking these questions/pointing these things out to play “gotcha!” I’m trying to understand your thinking.

  15. 15
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    With that much uncertainty, I don’t see how you can feel justified in legally compelling people to act in contradiction to their deeply held beliefs.

    Kate, if I think there’s a 50% chance that a 7 month old fetus is a conscious person with a desire to survive, I’d be irrational not to support a law banning the abortion of that fetus. I don’t think the probability is quite that high, and likely, the brain of such a fetus is something less than the brain of a more developed person, but it may nevertheless still be worthy of it’s own rights.

    Reasoning with probability like this is often necessary, especially when it come to compulsion under the law. There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding just how global warming is going to impact nations, their economies, and individuals, but as long as there is a risk that the impact could be catastrophic, there should be laws compelling people to alleviate that risk. The same is true when nations consider going to war and drafting troops, or when an intelligence agency writes a report recommending an airstrike on foreign soil. Sometimes uncertainty is all we have, but we still have to make decisions.

    I’m trying to be honest about my own uncertainties, do you not also feel uncertain about the personhood of a fetus? If so, tell me how you got there.

  16. 16
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    RJN, I’m not talking about a “potential person” in a fetus, although some utilitarians would probably like to talk about that, as it’s an interesting conversation.

    What I am saying is that I’m literally unsure to what degree a 7 month old fetus is a person, and so I’m unsure what rights it should have. Just because I don’t know whats going on inside the head of a fetus doesn’t mean I get to disappear the fetus.

    Suppose a drone operator would like to pull the trigger on a suspected weapons depot, but a structure nearby might be housing innocent people, and the ordinances inside the suspected depot might kill the “possible people” inside the structure. He’s got to make his decision with these “possible people” in mind, he can’t just assume they aren’t there because he doesn’t know (well, he shouldn’t anyway). Perhaps, the destruction of this depot is actually worth the risk, but while evaluating that risk, he can’t place a value of zero on these people, even though he doesn’t know if they exist.

  17. 17
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    Examples that are actually, reasonably comparable to forcing people into the risk of giving birth against their will?

    There aren’t any. Pregancy presents a pretty unique moral dilemma, which is why it’s so contested. It’s like an iteration of the trolly problem, but it’s real rather than hypothetical.

  18. Jeffrey,

    Suppose a drone operator would like to pull the trigger on a suspected weapons depot, but a structure nearby might be housing innocent people, and the ordinances inside the suspected depot might kill the “possible people” inside the structure. He’s got to make his decision with these “possible people” in mind, he can’t just assume they aren’t there because he doesn’t know (well, he shouldn’t anyway). Perhaps, the destruction of this depot is actually worth the risk, but while evaluating that risk, he can’t place a value of zero on these people, even though he doesn’t know if they exist.

    I appreciate that you are trying to work through your own uncertainty. I note, though, that this analogy, like the analogies that LoL gave, render the person who is pregnant entirely invisible. I am not suggesting that this fact ought to be enough to persuade you that a fetus does not (in my opinion cannot) have the same personhood status as the pregnant person, but I do think it indicates the importance of finding an analogy/thought experiment that does not—as yours and LoL’s do—have the answer you want (or at least that you seem to be learning towards) already built into it.

  19. 19
    Patrick Linnen says:

    When there are medical complications during a pregnancy, the choices are a) lose the fetus and let the mother live on, or b) lose both the fetus AND the mother.

    Pro-Life always chooses option b.

    The majority of Pro-Life arguments reduce women to a walking uterus. The rest are “Only the Woman has Agency! She deserves to suffer!”

    NB. Do you know what the preferred medical procedure is to terminate pregnancy at months 7, 8, and 9? You know, when the fetus is viable outside of the womb? Cesarean and Induced Labour. The only way the newborn would die at that point is if the hospital could not handle the premature baby or the medical condition of the fetus was such it would have died anyways.

  20. 20
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    RJN,

    I note, though, that this analogy, like the analogies that LoL gave, render the person who is pregnant entirely invisible.

    Man, this is very uncharitable considering I wrote this:

    What’s right and wrong here depends on how likely it is you think a particular fetus is a person or being that deserves moral consideration vs how much harm is done to a mother who wishes to abort a late term fetus but isn’t allowed to.

    I also stated that a drone operator may consider firing on a target worth the risk of harming innocents. Only one of us is putting a zero on one side of the equation, and it’s not me.

    I do think it indicates the importance of finding an analogy/thought experiment that does not—as yours and LoL’s do—have the answer you want (or at least that you seem to be learning towards) already built into it.

    Where did you get this idea that I want fetuses to be conscious rather than Zombies? As I’ve tried to make clear by alluding to a similar moral dilemma regarding the farming and killing of animals, I think it’s obvious that a world where abortion never had moral consequences with regard to the fetus is a better world. In exactly the same way, I’d like to live in a world where cows don’t care if we torture and then slaughter them to eat, because burgers are delicious. I’m just very skeptical that we live in such a world. Why am I the one guilty of motivated reasoning here, while you’re innocent? I’m pro-choice up to the least couple of months before birth, what exactly do you think my bias is, and why do you assume I didn’t get here by reasoning it out?

  21. Jeffrey,

    I’m not sure why you’re being so defensive, but maybe I have misread what you’ve been saying till now and so have responded to something you haven’t actually said. (The last sentence has been edited for clarity.) This is what I have understood:

    1. You have serious and not unreasonable questions about the personhood of the fetus;
    2. Because of this, there is within your reasoning about abortion, a point where you either already take or would be willing to consider taking a position that there’s a moment in someone’s pregnancy when one would have to balance the rights of the fetus over and against the rights of the pregnant person;
    3. You have been thinking through this seriously thorny issue in these blog comments and have, as part of thinking that through, offered this analogy/thought experiment, which I will quote in full again:

    Suppose a drone operator would like to pull the trigger on a suspected weapons depot, but a structure nearby might be housing innocent people, and the ordinances inside the suspected depot might kill the “possible people” inside the structure. He’s got to make his decision with these “possible people” in mind, he can’t just assume they aren’t there because he doesn’t know (well, he shouldn’t anyway). Perhaps, the destruction of this depot is actually worth the risk, but while evaluating that risk, he can’t place a value of zero on these people, even though he doesn’t know if they exist.

    Now, perhaps I have misread this entirely, but, as I understand it, the “possible people” inside the nearby structure represent the fetus, while the drone operator represents you, the person who has to figure out how to decide whether or not those “possible people” are actually present, i.e., whether or not the fetus is a person. Where in all this is the person who is pregnant with that fetus, the person against whose rights the rights of a fetus-that-is-a-person would have to be weighed? The only place I can see that person represented is by the nearby structure, an inanimate object. (And if those nearby structures represent the body of the fetus and what the drone operator has to figure out is whether that body contains personhood, then I have the same question: where is the person who is pregnant represented?)

    That’s what I meant when I said your analogy renders the pregnant person entirely invisible. I was not trying to insinuate anything about your stance on abortion or that you believe a pregnant person possesses anything less than full personhood. I was simply trying to point out that an analogy that is supposed to help one think through the question of fetal personhood that does not also include some representation of the full personhood of the person who is pregnant is inherently flawed: it fundamentally misrepresents the actual, real-world situation in which the fetus and the person who is pregnant with it exist.

    That’s why I said the analogy contains its own answer: the only personhood being examined through the analogy is the potential personhood of the fetus; the impact of that examination on the personhood of the person who is pregnant is not even a factor under consideration.

    I will add that, for me, this is the genius of the Talmud’s thought experiment: by asking us to imagine a pregnant woman who has been condemned to die, it avoids the problem of using inanimate objects as metaphors for her pregnant body, and it asks us to weigh the status of the fetus over and against her personhood, her humanity, in a context where it has been decided that she does not deserve her personhood (which, it seems to me, is one way of understanding a death sentence). In this analogy, the state—in the person of whomever has to decide when the woman’s sentence will be carried out—is in the position of your drone operator.

    Now, the rabbis of the Talmud ruled that the woman’s personhood is given precedence over the fetus. I imagine that someone else could read that thought experiment very differently and come up with a very different answer, one that would assign full personhood to the fetus—especially if it were late enough in the woman’s pregnancy. I would disagree with that answer, but, at the very least, it would not rely on analogy that turns the pregnant woman’s body into an inanimate object.

    If I have misread you, Jeffrey, please point out where. If I haven’t, then I hope you understand that I was simply trying to point out a flaw in your analogy, not to characterize your position on abortion or to accuse you of not seeing the personhood of a person who is pregnant.

  22. 22
    Kate says:

    LoL @6

    I simply think that it is rather obviously the most scientifically valid view that life/personhood doesn’t blink into existence, but rather, gradually develops. As such, I cannot justify treating a newborn fundamentally different from a fetus who is fully developed and merely waiting for the body to semi-arbitrarily go into labor.

    My understanding of the research is that fetuses are basically asleep all the time, and that the fetal brain probably doesn’t get enough oxygen to be conscious. So, actually, birth does seem to quite literally awaken the newborn for the first time. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/ However, I am certainly not an expert, and would be interested in other perspectives on this.
    Jeffrey Gandee @15

    Kate, if I think there’s a 50% chance that a 7 month old fetus is a conscious person with a desire to survive, I’d be irrational not to support a law banning the abortion of that fetus.

    I totally disagree. That was the main point of my post @12. If someone is in a position where they are considering a third trimester abortion, there is no GOOD answer to their situation, just more or less bad. Prohibiting them from making choices in accordance with their sincerely held religious values when under such duress is cruel. You need to be damn sure you’re the one who’s right before you impinge on their freedom of conscience in that way at such a time.

    I’m trying to be honest about my own uncertainties, do you not also feel uncertain about the personhood of a fetus? If so, tell me how you got there.

    I consider fetuses to be persons, but my definition of personhood doesn’t require consciousness. I was raised Catholic, and the women in my family still held the old Irish folk tradition that ensoulment occurs at “quickening”, when the pregnant person first feels the fetus move. Predictably, this was a vital turning point in my perception of my own pregnancy, when I started feeling that my son was a separate being from me. However, I was very, very surprised by childbirth. It certainly felt like part of MY body was being removed – that MY guts were being ripped out, in fact.
    Largely based on my experience with that wanted, healthy pregnancy and childbirth free of complications, I came to believe that pregnancy is invasive and risky enough; and going through childbirth and recovery painful and dangerous enough that no one should be forced to do it against their will.* I personally consider aborting a healthy pregnancy after quickening as comparable to a parent refusing to donate a kidney to save their child. Although, I would choose to donate the kidney, I DO think it should be a choice and I don’t think anyone should be legally compelled to do so.

    *Before, my pro-choice stance had been more utilitarian – based on the paradox that most of the evidence indicates that pro-choice policies lead to fewer abortions than so-called “pro-life” policies. I still hold this view as well.

  23. 23
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    Kate,

    So, actually, birth does seem to quite literally awaken the newborn for the first time.

    This would change my mind for late abortions. I realize I’m in a tiny minority of people who oppose late term abortion based on scientific discovery, but still, it would demolish my objections.

    There was a time in my life when I was super libertarian, and would have agreed with your reasoning regarding certainty, coercion, and the law. As I’ve gotten older and less certain about almost everything I drifted away from that kind of thinking. It’s paralyzing in a way that would make almost any government action/program unethical.

  24. 24
    Jeffrey Gandee says:

    RJN, I’m defensive because you accused me of motivated reasoning in direct contradiction to everything I’ve written, and I think the motivation you’ve assigned to me is evil. So yeah, I don’t like it.

  25. 25
    Ledasmom says:

    There does seem to be a willingness to dismiss the effects of pregnancy on a human body, and an assumption that the risks of a particular pregnancy are well-understood or predictable. The risks of pregnancy are rarely as simple as “abort or die”. It’s more likely to be a matter of elevated risk, and it bothers me that there are people who think that someone other than the pregnant person ought to decide when that risk is too high.
    The problem with having a strict policy of late-term abortion only as an alternative to the death of the mother – well, one of the problems, but I present this one to those who think that such a policy protects women with difficult pregnancies – is that medical personnel under such laws or rules are always looking over their shoulders at possible prosecution and censure, and abortion is therefore not provided even when the life of the mother is at risk. It was legal in Ireland to abort if the mother’s life was endangered in 2012, when Savita Halappanavar died because her life wasn’t judged to be in enough danger to overcome her doctors’ caution.

  26. 26
    desipis says:

    Ledasmom:

    It was legal in Ireland to abort if the mother’s life was endangered in 2012, when Savita Halappanavar died because her life wasn’t judged to be in enough danger to overcome her doctors’ caution.

    I don’t think anyone would disagree this the loss of life was a tragic outcome. However, if you’re going to argue for a risk based approach, then you need to weigh the loss of life of the mother against the loss of the lives of unborn children in cases where doctors’ would have performed abortions but for the law.

  27. 27
    Mookie says:

    The consequences of an abortion are more dire to the possible person than carrying

    This cuts in all conceivable directions. One person born to another at that other’s protest is less likely to have a healthy, safe, and long and productive development and life. Unwanted pregnancies, forced to full term, produces detrimental effects for children, including siblings to the unwanted child, and parents.

  28. 28
    Ledasmom says:

    I don’t think anyone would disagree this the loss of life was a tragic outcome. However, if you’re going to argue for a risk based approach, then you need to weigh the loss of life of the mother against the loss of the lives of unborn children in cases where doctors would have performed abortions but for the law

    I don’t particularly care about the lives of fetuses. I do care about the lives of the people carrying them. I would rather a thousand fetuses die than one woman. Does that make my thoughts on the matter clear?
    Also, damn I’m happy I’m through menopause. Totally worth the raging hot flashes to have pregnancy off the table.

  29. 29
    Kate says:

    I don’t think anyone would disagree this the loss of life was a tragic outcome. However, if you’re going to argue for a risk based approach, then you need to weigh the loss of life of the mother against the loss of the lives of unborn children in cases where doctors’ would have performed abortions but for the law.

    This post and the entire thread following has been devoted to discussion of the ways different people, traditions and philosophies weigh the the burdens of pregnancy against the rights of fetuses. Pretending that we just haven’t thought of it is just plain gas lighting.

  30. 30
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    RJN,

    Why do you think that being forced to terminate a pregnancy is a violation of a pregnant person’s human rights, essentially a violation of their personhood, but that forcing a pregnant person to give birth, which is what happens when you outlaw abortion past a certain point, is not a similar kind of violation?

    Mostly for the same reasons that banning suicide is typically not considered to be morally the same as killing a person. Action being considered different from inaction, certain outcomes being considered worse than other outcomes (losing a desired fetus vs having an undesired baby), the existence of alternatives (like adoption), etc.

    Specifically for abortions, there is the issue that the sex was typically voluntary. People generally believe that actions with foreseeable risks that do happen make for less of a force majeure than fully unexpected occurances.

    Specifically for late abortions, there is also the ‘had your chance’ issue, including the resulting effect of forcing a more early decision, when the fetus is less developed.

    I note that your wording here does, in fact, erase the personhood of the person inhabiting “the body [that will go] semi-arbitrarily…into labor.”

    No, I am recognizing the fact that the pregnant woman cannot in fact induce labor by force of will.

    I actually specifically used the phrasing to imply that the fetus may be fully developed and that the body may induce labor when circumstances are right, which may involve factors other than the fetus being fully developed. Then some fetuses may be actually be just as fully developed as many very young babies, making the distinction between aborting a fetus who is near (or over) 9 months or killing a very young baby to be nonexistent from a developmental point of view.

    precedence over the life and established personhood of the mother—and by “life” here I do not mean, simply, the act/fact of being alive, but rather everything that being alive contains: hopes, dreams, job, success, failure, socioeconomic status, etc. and etc.

    I have a big problem with your black-white and IMO rather extremist framing, where any reduction of hopes, dreams, job, success, socioeconomic status or having failures is equated to a loss of personhood.

    It encourages a view where none of that is acceptable, which is extremely unhealthy. Life is failure and sacrifice as much as success and being sacrificed for. Achieving requires making choices that close off other possibilities. Maturing means recognizing one’s limitations and thus giving up on dreams. People who experience very little ‘loss of personhood’ rarely actually become nice, well-adjusted people. They usually become obnoxious, spoiled brats who think little of taking advantage of others.

    Doing the right thing sometimes does require taking a hit on the things you mention. If one takes your argument to it’s conclusion, then I am justified in not helping the old lady who fell in the street and is bleeding badly, because I might get blood on me.

    However, if one doesn’t take your argument to its extreme, then it’s unpersuasive, because then one can just believe that a certain sacrifice to not harm a fetus (of a certain level of development) is moral.

    I’m pointing out because I just wish you’d be honest and say that, yes, that in your belief system there comes a point where the fetus’ status, etc. takes precedence over the status of the person who is pregnant with it.

    That I won’t do that has nothing to do with a lack of honesty, but that I fundamentally reject your framing and thus would not be saying my truth if I were to say what you want to hear. In my view, there is never a matter of precedence. The pregnant woman has obligations at any point of the pregnancy, including during the period where I support her right to an abortion. At that point she does have the (moral) obligation to carefully consider the matter and to not make that decision for little reason.

    I think that the older the fetus is, the more pressing the reason should be. At a certain point, only a severe medical reason qualifies. That this exception exists in many laws illustrates how your framing is wrong., because your frame merely allows from one switch (from favoring the pregnant woman to favoring the fetus).

  31. 31
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    @Grace Annam

    So you’re okay with making the pregnant person’s risk assessment for them?

    Fact is that only for a relatively small minority of pregnancies, the health of the mother is even a reason for the decision (8-12%) and it is the main reason for a very small minority of abortions (3-4%). So you are arguing for the exception, rather than the rule here.

    That said, a child can be dangerous as well. They have been known to set things on fire, killing people. Do you think that a parent should be allowed to kill their child if they think this risk is too high for their liking, or do you think that society may ban this, because they think that killing children is morally worse than running this risk?

    If you do not think that killing children should be allowed, then why should banning abortion (at a certain point) then necessarily be wrong for not allowing people to make their own choice?

    If you merely object to restrictions on abortion because you think that in this specific case the moral downsides are too small compared to the upsides to ban abortion (at any time during the pregnancy & for any reason), but you don’t object in other specific cases where you believe that the moral negatives are enough to ban certain actions, then you don’t actually have a principled objection based on the freedom to choose, do you?

    But it turns out that the process of growing the fetus has consequences on the pregnant person apart from the risk of death, and getting the fetus out of the pregnant person is a risky, painful process with irreversible impacts on the pregnant person. If you’re going to do someone else’s cost/benefit analysis, for heaven’s sake, include ALL of the costs and benefits.

    RJN based his argument on the fetus not being individuated and/or having insufficient personhood. I addressed his argument as he made it.

    Now you are chastising me for not addressing issues that are not part of his reasoning. This is really quite unfair and unreasonable. You essentially demand that I strawman him, to anticipate your objections.

    These analogies are astounding. You appear to have a bizarrely naïve understanding of the process of childbirth. It’s more involved than sitting on the toilet, and your analysis should probably reflect that.

    My analogies were intended to examine whether certain things that distinguish a fetus from a baby (like being inside another person or requiring shelter) prohibit the fetus from being considered enough of a person to have laws protecting it from being killed when a parent thinks this makes his/her life better (which is not considered a valid reason by law to kill a baby).

  32. 32
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    Ledasmom,

    The problem with having a strict policy of late-term abortion only as an alternative to the death of the mother – well, one of the problems, but I present this one to those who think that such a policy protects women with difficult pregnancies – is that medical personnel under such laws or rules are always looking over their shoulders at possible prosecution and censure, and abortion is therefore not provided even when the life of the mother is at risk.

    That is one possibility. The other is that they accommodate a request that violates the law by calling things a medical emergency when it isn’t.

  33. 33
    Mandolin says:

    I do not have to weigh the rights of persons who don’t exist yet.

    If I agreed that I needed to weigh those rights in a way that takes them seriously (assuming those rights include “existing”), I would have to do at least these things:

    *ban not only contraception, but also ban anyone failing to use any possible method that can be used to make every non-pregnant person pregnant at all times, because we are abrogating the rights of people who don’t exist to exist.

    *and more importantly, dedicate as many resources as possible to ending the greatest carnage of all time, early natural miscarriage rates, which carry a terrifyingly high risk for a person who does not yet exist but has the right to exist. (This holds especially true if I believe that fetuses are actually persons who have the right to live!!)

    The reasoning that sentience or personhood begins at conception is religious in its root. People are welcome to practice their religions, but the state should not favor one religious tradition, and force citizens to practice that set of religious beliefs.

    I do not believe fetuses are meaningfully persons until late enough in pregnancy that abortions are only performed by sheer disaster, but I want to note that I was sloppy in my wording before. Belief that personhood exists at *conception* and at any time before the formation of the necessary anatomy is religious at its root and inappropriate to force on all citizens. Despite my belief that fetuses are not persons until much later, the argument that fetuses become persons when the anatomy is there is not rooted in religion in the same unavoidable way.

    I realize that there are political reasons behind some people’s conceding personhood-at-conception non-religious arguments anyway, because the result is still a pro-choice position. Nevertheless, the fact that if I do weigh the rights of nonexistant people, I still get the same result – does not mean that I am obligated to actually weigh the rights of nonexistent people.

    (Endangered unicorns, for instance, would have the right to protection — but since I am not obligated to weigh the rights of nonexistent individuals, I do not have to worry about that.)

    Personhood is not the only argument that can be made against abortion. But it is not justified to imply that it is something that fundamentally must be weighed by all people.

    *

    *

  34. 34
    Grace Annam says:

    Limits of Language:

    Fact is that only for a relatively small minority of pregnancies, the health of the mother is even a reason for the decision (8-12%) and it is the main reason for a very small minority of abortions (3-4%). So you are arguing for the exception, rather than the rule here.

    So I am to understand that you are arguing that it’s okay if we disregard fundamental rights to bodily autonomy as long as we only do it to a minority of the population? That is fascinating legal reasoning. Tell me more. What’s the cutoff? You’ve put an apparent floor at 12%, so we’ve already written off smaller groups (like trans people), but how high does this go? 25%? 49%?

    That said, a child can be dangerous as well.

    I know. I’ve raised children.

    If you do not think that killing children should be allowed, then why should banning abortion (at a certain point) then necessarily be wrong for not allowing people to make their own choice?

    Work with me, here, as I try to apply the framework you argued, above: because abortions of fetuses which are past the point of viability are a relatively small minority of abortions, and thus we can discount them? I mean, it really seems to me that you are arguing for the exception, rather than the rule, here.

    (For the record, that does not reflect my actual opinion on abortion, which I have not, in fact, stated here.)

    If you merely object to restrictions on abortion because you think that in this specific case the moral downsides are too small compared to the upsides to ban abortion (at any time during the pregnancy & for any reason), but you don’t object in other specific cases where you believe that the moral negatives are enough to ban certain actions, then you don’t actually have a principled objection based on the freedom to choose, do you?

    You appear to be arguing that one cannot make a principled objection in a case of competing harms. But, of course, you can argue that it’s legal to swerve across the double yellow line to avoid a kid on a tricycle who just popped into the road in front of you, while at the same time holding that it should be generally illegal to cross the double yellow line. Avoiding the kid can arise from the principle that we generally should not harm people, and staying in your lane can arise from the principle that we generally should obey the law. (Both of those principles are derivative, but I’m not going to perform the dance of Attempt to Reduce to First Principles, because it’s a distracting number.)

    So, if I were to take the position that a fetus becomes a person prior to birth, that does not abrogate the principle of bodily autonomy; it sets up a situation of competing principles. This is routine, in ethics. In fact, it’s most of what ethics is about.

    I addressed his argument as he made it.

    You wrote…

    So I think that I’m not at all weighing the life/personhood of the pregnant woman against the life of the fetus, but rather, the consequences to her education/career/finances/etc vs the life/personhood of the fetus.

    …and thus swept aside any consideration of things the pregnant person might care about other than their life and their financial concerns.

    You wrote…

    …the mother will not run a large risk to die if she brings the child to term…

    …and that’s where you made the decision for the pregnant person, by disregarding their own risk assessment. You said, in effect, “I judge the risk to be small, and that justifies our taking the decision from pregnant people.” That opened the door to the argument, “The risk is not, in fact, as small as you represent it to be, and therefore cannot stand as a justification.”

    I did not demand that you use bad argumentation (that you “strawman [Richard]”); I pointed out that your argument had a flaw. If you want to be safe from people pointing out flaws in your arguments, tighten up your arguments.

    My analogies were intended to…

    Sadly, your intentions did not make your analogies work. You need better analogies.

    Grace

  35. 35
    Sai Nushi says:

    There are too many comments to point to any specific. It seems there’s some debate over where the mother’s personhood is represented in the following thought-experiment:

    “Suppose a drone operator would like to pull the trigger on a suspected weapons depot, but a structure nearby might be housing innocent people, and the ordinances inside the suspected depot might kill the “possible people” inside the structure. He’s got to make his decision with these “possible people” in mind, he can’t just assume they aren’t there because he doesn’t know (well, he shouldn’t anyway). Perhaps, the destruction of this depot is actually worth the risk, but while evaluating that risk, he can’t place a value of zero on these people, even though he doesn’t know if they exist.”

    The mother is represented by the entity the drone operator is working for. However, “entity the drone operator works for” is a bit long to repeat over and over again. Let’s assume it is a country. Let’s call this country Gaia.

    The weapons depot is only suspected. It might cause problems for Gaia, it might not. Just like the pregnancy might cause problems for the mother, and might not. The pregnancy is not the only thing that might cause problems for the mother, just like the weapons depot is not the only thing that might cause problems for Gaia.
    ———————–

    I was raised Christian, but I was never actually taught when a fetus becomes a person. I didn’t hear about abortion being a thing until I was a teenager. At that point, I figured it was obvious that a fetus isn’t a person until they can live outside the mother’s body. That to kill a fetus before that point is bad in as much as it harms the mother (because it usually harms the mother physically, and if she was emotionally invested definitely harms her that way). That abortion is actually morally wrong, but that we don’t have the authority to legislate a person’s decision to do immoral things, unless those immoral things cause actual harm to another person. Thus, it’s not illegal to lie to your parents, or call someone names, or get drunk every night (note, once or twice a week would not be immoral, but every night is excessive and destructive).

  36. LoL:

    I’ve now read your response several times and I confess I am having a hard time understanding how it is inconsistent with your position to say that you believe there comes a point in someone’s pregnancy where, as I wrote, “the fetus’s status takes precedence over the status of the person who is pregnant with it.” In saying that I am not suggesting you are antiabortion; I am not suggesting that you have no consideration for the pregnant person; I am simply saying that, at some point, you believe the pregnant person loses (or should lose) the legal right to choose to have a non-therapetic abortion, by which I assume you mean an abortion that is not indicated by some immediate, physical threat to the pregnant person’s life that necessitates termination of the pregnancy. I’m not interested in trying to persuade you that you are wrong. We clearly see this from very different, perhaps irreconcilable perspectives. I am curious, though: How would you respond to the Talmud’s thought experiment? Would you force the condemned woman to carry her pregnancy to term before putting her to death? (And no cheating by saying that you don’t believe in the death penalty. I don’t either. Assume you have no choice but to wait or to put the woman to death as soon as possible.)

    One reason I ask is that I continue to believe the Talmud’s thought experiment is more effective in defining what’s at stake in this debate than the ones you have used. Any analogy that is meant to illustrate the status/condition of the fetus that does not also explicitly include the fact that the fetus is attached to an actual human being—that it is not, in other words, merely the inhabitant of a house or attached to a body as if that body were a kind of life support system or some other such thing—will be implicitly biased towards privileging the life of the fetus if only because there is no other human life within the analogy to consider.

    Finally, as to this:

    It encourages a view where none of that is acceptable, which is extremely unhealthy. Life is failure and sacrifice as much as success and being sacrificed for. Achieving requires making choices that close off other possibilities. Maturing means recognizing one’s limitations and thus giving up on dreams. People who experience very little ‘loss of personhood’ rarely actually become nice, well-adjusted people. They usually become obnoxious, spoiled brats who think little of taking advantage of others.

    I wish you would stop making grand generalizations like this. As I demonstrated by laying out the Jewish position regarding the status of the fetus, there are systems of thought other than yours within which to consider reproductive choice and its consequences, and those systems of thought are no less moral or ethical than yours, even though you might not choose to live by them.

  37. 37
    Kate says:

    Jeffrey Gandee @23 said

    There was a time in my life when I was super libertarian, and would have agreed with your reasoning regarding certainty, coercion, and the law. As I’ve gotten older and less certain about almost everything I drifted away from that kind of thinking. It’s paralyzing in a way that would make almost any government action/program unethical.

    Hold on there…I’m no libertarian!!!! My opinions on this level of caution about “certainty, coercion, and the law” applies only to highly personal decisions, especially surrounding bodily autonomy, and medical care. I wouldn’t need that level of certainty to prevent a company from dumping chemicals into a river, or to tax people at 70% on all their income over $10 million (to take a few examples).
    I also think that, when rights do conflict, we should try to find ways to prevent the conflict in the first place whenever possible. So, if you want to reduce abortions, the best way to do that it to increase access to contraception. If you want to reduce late term abortions, the best way to do that is to provide better access to prenatal care, early screening for fetal abnormalities, and first and second trimester abortions.

    LoL @31

    Fact is that only for a relatively small minority of pregnancies, the health of the mother is even a reason for the decision (8-12%) and it is the main reason for a very small minority of abortions (3-4%).

    The primary reason for most third trimester abortions is not the health of the pregnant person. It is that the fetus has conditions incompatible with life outside the womb. The alternatives to abortion in those cases for the pregnant person to go through childbirth, and then allow the child to die (or, in some cases, live in a vegetative state); or to deliver and provide medical intervention that is almost certainly doomed to fail. As I keep saying….no good option. The case used to discuss the ethical situation in the religion class I took was of a fetus found to have no kidneys, but normal brain development. Transplants are not possible in these cases (or weren’t in the 1980’s), and dialysis would only extend the baby’s life a few horribly painful months.
    In these instances, Catholics opt for “nursing care only”, withholding food and water, essentially allowing the baby to die of thirst. That is because it allows for the fastest death without active intervention. I consider that much more cruel than a late term abortion. I also think, when one has a duty of care (as parents do to children, hospital staff to patients and wardens to prisoners) withholding food and water is not more morally justified than actively killing the person who is under your care. But, I would never tell Catholic parents that they could not choose that option, because in that horrible situation, there is no good answer and parents, in consultation with their doctors and clergy (if they wish) should be allowed to choose whatever they think is best for their child and themselves.

  38. 38
    Mandolin says:

    My sister-in-law had a wanted fetus die inside her.

    Leaving it in place would have exposed her to something dire. Sepsis I think.

    They had to take it out.

    The procedure is the same as an abortion. Some proposed laws would make that impossible.

    I can’t even imagine how awful it must have been.

  39. 39
    Kate says:

    Yes, one of the tells specifically about the people who craft anti-choice legislation is they generally don’t carve out exceptions for fetal death. They still force people to wait three days to have the corpse removed from their bodies, or even require induction of labor and delivery rather than having it removed in the safest, least intrusive and least painful way possible.

  40. 40
    desipis says:

    Ledasmom:

    I don’t particularly care about the lives of fetuses. I do care about the lives of the people carrying them. I would rather a thousand fetuses die than one woman. Does that make my thoughts on the matter clear?

    Yes, that makes it clear. I think that first sentence is the crux of the whole abortion debate.

    Pro-choice people consider the lives of fetuses as having low moral value (relative to grown humans) or none at all. Pro-life people consider the lives of fetuses to be of high moral value, up to being equal with those of fully grown humans.

  41. 41
    Zag says:

    Ledasmom:

    Plus, fetuses can’t fight back, so who cares if you kill them. I guess it would be a different matter if they knew what was coming and kicked the internal organs of the mother to mush before they were hauled out and killed.

    But I’ve always been kind of a secret admirer of people who can laugh or even express indifference while they destroy people too weak to fight back. It takes courage.

  42. Zag:

    Dial back the snark, please. This has been a civil discussion till now and I’d like to keep it that way.

  43. 43
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    Mandolin, RE comment #33,

    Quite a few religious people have deontological rather than consequentialist ethics. For them, a decision by God to abort a fetus is not the same as a human deciding this (because mankind is fallible, etc.).

    Another reason to distinguish between spontaneous and induced abortions is that AFAIK, early miscarriages are often nature’s way of aborting malformed fetuses. It seems to me that it can be a perfectly consistent position to oppose the abortion of healthy fetuses, but to not have a problem with abortions of (severely) malformed fetuses.

    Finally, it should be pointed out that miscarriage rates are much higher for (much) older parents and that liberal Western society has way older parents than more traditonalist societies. So a traditionalist may very well believe that (one of) the best way(s) to reduce miscarriages is to make society more traditional.

    Kate,

    The primary reason for most third trimester abortions is not the health of the pregnant person. It is that the fetus has conditions incompatible with life outside the womb.

    In that case, I assume you don’t have a problem with abortion laws that require that 3rd trimester abortions have a medical reason?

    BTW. I looked and there doesn’t actually seem to be any solid research into this. So your claim seems to be unverifiable.

    The alternatives to abortion in those cases for the pregnant person to go through childbirth, and then allow the child to die (or, in some cases, live in a vegetative state)

    Very late abortions are in fact typically similar to childbirth, being either a procedure similar to a caesarean or being an ‘intact dilation and extraction’ procedure, where a ‘intact’ fetus is delivered (although the skull may be collapsed and/or the bones softened).

    It’s unclear to me to what extent this is less risky than normal childbirth, but it is probably a lot more risky than 1st trimester abortions.

    In these instances, Catholics opt for “nursing care only”, withholding food and water, essentially allowing the baby to die of thirst. That is because it allows for the fastest death without active intervention. I consider that much more cruel than a late term abortion.

    That is not necessary from a legal perspective when there is a medical exception for late abortions.

  44. 44
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    Grace Annam,

    So I am to understand that you are arguing that it’s okay if we disregard fundamental rights to bodily autonomy as long as we only do it to a minority of the population

    No, you argued that the right to abortion is important because it allows women to decide when the risk of pregnancy/birth is too great for them, but:
    1. the facts show that only a fairly small minority of women who decide to have a pregnancy consider this reason and even fewer have this as their main reason
    2. it’s common for there to be exceptions to (late-term) abortion bans when objectively or subjectively, the pregnant woman runs excessive risk

    So my point is that your argument is only really applicable for a minority and that you are disregarding the majority. You then turn this around to an accusation that I’m disregarding this minority, while I actually pointed out that this minority can be and is often specifically addressed by abortion laws (by allowing them to have an abortion when this is not allowed for other reasons). How you can then accuse me of disregarding them while I point out how they can are and can be catered to without full abortion rights for everyone is quite baffling to me.

    You fundamentally don’t seem to understand what (or how) I’m trying to argue. One way to debate is to point out that the arguments don’t lead to the conclusion, which I think is the case for your argument, unless you think that it’s irrelevant whether the pregnant woman runs an elevated risk and/or thinks that the risk is too high, but then you should argue this.

    Instead, you make these false equivocations and absurd accusations that I’m ‘writing off’ certain people that just muddle the issue.

    I also want to point out that the ‘fundamental right to bodily autonomy’ that you invoke is:
    A. independent of risk
    B. something that AFAIK is not actually considered to be an unlimited right in any place and can be restricted if it comes in conflict with other rights/concerns
    C. not actually sufficient as a defense of abortion doctors, in the same way that having legalized suicide for reasons of bodily autonomy doesn’t mean that assisted suicide is legal as well

    …and thus swept aside any consideration of things the pregnant person might care about other than their life and their financial concerns.

    No, I separated out abortion-seekers into two groups: those where the health of the woman is a specific concern and those where it is not.

    I then noted that laws can and do (sometimes or perhaps often) do this as well. So then one can accommodate the one group, without accommodating the other. For example, because one believes that (significantly) elevated risk of death is a good reason for a (late) abortion, but not a limited income. I noted that health-based arguments are a poor defense of abortion rights for that latter group.

    You said, in effect, “I judge the risk to be small, and that justifies our taking the decision from pregnant people.”

    The fact that 80+% of abortion-seekers don’t give this reason as being part of why they seek an abortion, shows that these women themselves judge that risk to be small.

    Ironically, you are more guilty of deciding for people what they believe than I, as I actually look at what they say in surveys.

  45. 45
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    RJN,

    I am having a hard time understanding how it is inconsistent with your position to say that you believe there comes a point in someone’s pregnancy where, as I wrote, “the fetus’s status takes precedence over the status of the person who is pregnant with it.”

    Because it is not in fact purely dependent on the status of the pregnancy, nor do I think that the moral obligation has merely one change. I also think that a person who seeks abortion in the first week has less obligations than when seeking an abortion in the 12th week, who has less obligations than in the 22nd week (note that obligations can merely be moral/cultural, not necessarily legal).

    I feel that you are pushing me into a frame where it looks like I don’t have a nuanced opinion about concerns and obligations before and after the moment where non-medical abortion becomes legal. In other words, where I have no or very little consideration for the fetus before and no or very little consideration for the pregnant woman afterwards.

    Would you force the condemned woman to carry her pregnancy to term before putting her to death?

    The Talmud’s thought experiment is based on some very debatable assumptions, including that delaying death is inhuman torture and that the condemned sees it that way and/or that she prefers to have the fetus die with her. It’s really rather ironic that you offer it as a defense of abortion rights when it treats the opinion of the condemned as irrelevant.

    My answer, which you might call cheating, is to first ask the woman. If she wants to deliver the baby, she should be allowed to deliver and breastfeed the baby for some time. If she doesn’t, then she wants an abortion and the same moral reasoning applies for abortions of the non-condemned. If the fetus is young enough, it can be killed along with the mother (or aborted beforehand), if not, abortion is illegal, including abortion by killing the mother. However, if there is a medical reason that would allow for a late abortion, then the fetus can be killed along with the mother (or aborted beforehand).

    I think that my answer treats the pregnant woman as an truly individuated person, which includes recognizing that she has opinions & beliefs of her own, while the Talmudic answer doesn’t really. Don’t you agree that the Talmudic reasoning is illiberal?

    One reason I ask is that I continue to believe the Talmud’s thought experiment is more effective in defining what’s at stake in this debate than the ones you have used.

    I disagree, because a very important question in the abortion debate is who gets to decide what valid reasons for abortion are. In the Talmudic answer, the state decides for the pregnant woman that she should have an abortion based merely on what the community/religion decides is the best for a pregnant condemned woman, not on what she thinks is best and/or preferable.

    That answer is far more consistent with a law where it is a doctor or other authority who finally decides whether an abortion is appropriate/allowed, rather than abortion as a right for pregnant women, which presumably is what you are in favor of.

    As I demonstrated by laying out the Jewish position regarding the status of the fetus, there are systems of thought other than yours within which to consider reproductive choice and its consequences, and those systems of thought are no less moral or ethical than yours, even though you might not choose to live by them.

    You did not demonstrate that those systems of thought are equally moral or ethical. I claim the freedom to see one systems of thought as more moral than another.

  46. 46
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    Kate,

    One reason why I am skeptical about late term abortions almost always being for the reason you state is because of this:

    A prominent member of the abortion rights movement said today that he lied in earlier statements when he said a controversial form of late-term abortion is rare and performed primarily to save the lives or fertility of women bearing severely malformed babies.

    He now says the procedure is performed far more often than his colleagues have acknowledged, and on healthy women bearing healthy fetuses.

    Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said he intentionally misled in previous remarks about the procedure, called intact dilation and evacuation by those who believe it should remain legal and ”partial-birth abortion” by those who believe it should be outlawed, because he feared that the truth would damage the cause of abortion rights.

    But he is now convinced, he said, that the issue of whether the procedure remains legal, like the overall debate about abortion, must be based on the truth.

  47. 47
    Grace Annam says:

    Limits of Language:

    BTW. I looked and there doesn’t actually seem to be any solid research into this. So your claim seems to be unverifiable.

    Given the elapsed time between Kate’s comment and yours, it seems unlikely that you can have done really thorough research on this question. If you’re interested in discussion, please ask Kate for her source rather than simply dismissing her claim. If you’re not interested in discussion, then you should review the moderation policy here at Alas.

    Grace

  48. 48
    Grace Annam says:

    Limits of Language:

    …the facts show…

    Do they? You didn’t provide a reference for your figure.

    It interests me to see that expect me to accept your assertions at face value, and yet you feel free to dismiss Kate’s out of hand, rather than inquire after her source.

    I accepted yours for the sake of argument. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to let pass without comment your assertion of unsourced figures, presumably derived from research and therefore more properly thought of as “results” when applying the research more broadly, as “facts”.

    One way to debate is…
    Instead, you make these false equivocations and absurd accusations that I’m ‘writing off’ certain people that just muddle the issue.

    I think that my technique and point were easily understood, and that other people here understood them perfectly well. You may not like my point or understand my technique, and that’s fine. I’ve found myself irritated by a lot of your recent posts, for reasons I think I’ve made clear enough. We’re rapidly reaching my cost/benefit limit on whether this is a conversation worth my time, and in the near future my schedule in the outside world is going to be busy. Since I have mouths to feed and my participation at Alas does not advance that goal, I have to make decisions about which discussions here are fruitful or futile. It’s why I don’t usually participate in discussions about abortion; in my experience they are almost always the latter rather than the former.

    So, I may or may not reply further on this.

    I also want to point out that the ‘fundamental right to bodily autonomy’ that you invoke is…
    B. something that AFAIK is not actually considered to be an unlimited right in any place and can be restricted if it comes in conflict with other rights/concerns…

    I have not asserted it as an unlimited right. In fact, I have suggested a competing harms framework, which is exactly the opposite of asserting an unlimited, unrestrictable right. Part of the reason I am seeing the cost/benefit of this conversation with you as being too high is that I don’t think you’re really trying to understand what I’m saying; you’re just interested in winning the argument.

    Convince me that I’m wrong, and I turn on a dime. I’ve changed opinions before, sometimes on evidence and sometimes on persuasion by people who had earned my positive regard. But you are not in that latter category, and if you’re arguing on evidence, your arguments have to be solid. In my experience, solid arguments in close conversation require that one listen closely to what the other person is saying, and reflect deeply on what they say and how it applies to one’s understanding. In this case, the evidence is piling up that I’m wasting my time.

    Ironically, you are more guilty of deciding for people what they believe than I, as I actually look at what they say in surveys.

    There is, of course, a difference between generally extrapolating the results of opinion surveys and leaving individual choices to individuals. Either you aren’t seeing that, or you thought that I wouldn’t. Either way, I’m done for now.

    Seriously, though, it might profit you to re-read the Comments Policy.

    Grace

  49. 49
    Zag says:

    Zag’s text removed by Grace, a moderator.

  50. 50
    Grace Annam says:

    Zag, I am a moderator, here at Alas. One thing I have learned, over the years, is that the cost/benefit ratio to arguing about moderation decisions is extremely high. So I don’t.

    I have deleted your comment.

    To everyone who wants to participate in this thread:
    Address the content of the argument.
    Do not make personal attacks.
    Do not argue moderation decisions.

    Alternative: make your own blog, or participate in one or more of the many other discussions which already exist elsewhere on the Internet.

    Thank you.

    Grace

  51. 51
    Mandolin says:

    For your own health, Zag — consider stopping this habit. You’re somehow obsessed with this. I don’t know when you were first banned, or what particularly it is about this interaction that’s stuck with you — but this isn’t productive. We see you; we know what you’re doing; you’re stuck in a loop. Obsessing like this is just making it worse.

    Good luck; I hope you are able to find a place that’s good for you, and start feeling better.

  52. 52
    JTV says:

    Comment removed by RJN, moderator and author of the OP.

  53. 53
    LimitsOfLanguage says:

    Grace Annam,

    Given the elapsed time between Kate’s comment and yours, it seems unlikely that you can have done really thorough research on this question.

    I actually did the research before her comment. Her comment was the trigger to write a response about this, but not the trigger to look into this. Even if I had started to research after her comment, there was plenty of time. My research doesn’t consist of doing a study myself after all, but looking for studies that already exist.

    My impression is that I’m considerably better than average at doing a fairly good job of looking for existing research, so what might take you a long time doesn’t necessarily take me that long. I don’t know what you based your assumptions on how much time it would cost me to research something, but I can’t imagine it is actual knowledge about me, how I research or how good I am at it.

    If you do think I am wrong, it seems more helpful for everyone involved that you (try to) prove me wrong than that you to try to police me for challenging a claim from your friend/ally. Your comment actually only made it even more clear to me that you get unreasonably upset at that and that you start threatening me based on presumptions on your part, without contributing anything substantial about the issue at hand.

    …the facts show…

    Do they? You didn’t provide a reference for your figure.

    It interests me to see that expect me to accept your assertions at face value,…

    I have provided the link to the evidence before (in comment 63 in the other thread that spawned this one). I’ve been referring to that same study multiple times. I’m a bit confused why you don’t realize this, because I see two possibilities:
    – either you look at the evidence that I link to, in which case it should have been clear that my claims about the reasons that women give for their abortion are based on the study I linked about the reasons that women give for their abortion
    – you ignore (some of) the evidence that I link to, in which case it seems rather rude to demand that I provide evidence, if you are not actually interested in looking at the evidence

    Aside from that, it seems extremely obvious to me that you apply a double standard, as you didn’t demand that Kate provided the evidence for her claim. Now, I don’t begrudge you your biases or even your threats of banning me if I don’t write to a much higher standard than what you hold your friends/allies to, as I don’t expect fairness or an equal playing ground. However, the passive aggressiveness does grate & the far higher demands on me are a bit of a burden on my participation here.

    We’re rapidly reaching my cost/benefit limit on whether this is a conversation worth my time

    Well, it was actually you who responded to my comment that was directed at RJN, not at you. So I didn’t draw you into this discussion between the two of us, you did. I’ve actually wavered very close to not responding to your initial comment in this thread, which seemed hostile from the start. The first sentence in that comment was very accusatory and based on assumptions that you didn’t seem to realize many others do not share. You react quite strongly to assumptions that you think that I make, but some introspection on your part about how often and how much you do this to others might not go amiss.

    Anyway, you are of course free to disengage at any time.

    I have not asserted it as an unlimited right. In fact, I have suggested a competing harms framework, which is exactly the opposite of asserting an unlimited, unrestrictable right.

    I don’t think that I interpreted you strangely, when I interpreted your accusation “so I am to understand that you are arguing that it’s okay if we disregard fundamental rights to bodily autonomy as long as we only do it to a minority of the population?” as a claim that you believe that the right to bodily autonomy is unlimited and should be extended to everyone. If you didn’t believe that, your accusation seems disingenuous, rather than just hostile.

    I’m not sure why you expect me to read you as being far more nuanced than what you actually write, as I am incapable of mindreading, so I have to try to divine your beliefs from what you write.

    There is, of course, a difference between generally extrapolating the results of opinion surveys and leaving individual choices to individuals. Either you aren’t seeing that, or you thought that I wouldn’t.

    This is very typical of how you (very passively aggressively) accuse me when you read my arguments with extreme bad faith, in a way that has no relation to my actual argument.

    You made statements that only apply to women who get an abortion because of their health. I pointed out that most women who get an abortion don’t actually do this for their health. So it seems to me that if you want to defend the right for women to have an abortion for financial reasons or such, you can’t defend that by merely arguing that women should be able to get an abortion for health reasons.

    I’m just trying to get you to a point where you make arguments that are consistent with the facts, as well as the policy that you defend, but it seems quite hopeless.

  54. 54
    Murph says:

    Comment removed by RJN.

  55. 55
    lurker23 says:

    Grace, Kate, Limits, and RJN:

    i am lurking but confused and i am hoping for a informative before i lurk again, this is really interesting to read, if you are okay answering this please do:

    i think that you all agree that is is okay for someone to get an abortion at any time if it is *required for medical reasons*, can you say if this is right?

    i also think you all agree that it is okay for someone to get an abortion for any reason at all in the early time, which definitely includes the first trimester and may also go sort of into the second, is this also right?

    for the last part i do not know for sure about anyone other than Limits (i think) and i am VERY sorry if i am guessing wrong, i am hoping to make more clear by asking a question.

    i think you are talking about four different ways of thinking:

    1. -fetus interest does not matter or does not exist at all before birth so there is no balance to think about. this seems like it would support free choice at any time for any reason. i do not think anyone is arguing this, though i am not sure i am understanding the talmud part?

    2. -fetus interest may be not-zero, but is never going to be bigger than the interest of mother, because the interests of mother are so huge, so when it comes to abortion choice the *result is the same* as saying it does not matter/exist at any time in the pregnancy (even if you agree that the interests of fetus may be not-zero). i think this is what Kate is saying, i may be wrong?

    3. -fetus interest starts out at zero (before it is even a fetus) and gets bigger and bigger as it goes on so that near the end of pregnancy you need more and more good reason to have an abortion. but the mother interest is so big that it is almost always okay to get an abortion and most reasons would be okay (including not-medical reasons like finances and emotion and divorce and stuff) and maybe the only exception would be something like “you cannot get an abortion just because of free choice for no reason in third trimester, but you can do it if you come up with almost any reason.”

    4. -fetus interest starts out at zero (before it is even a fetus) and gets bigger as it gets older. the mother interest is so big though that you do not need any reason in the first trimester. but the fetus interest gets bigger and bigger as it goes on so that near the end of pregnancy you need more and more good reason to have an abortion. and near the end of pregnancy, you need a VERY good reason, probably only a serious medical one, and you would never be allowed to do it just because of choice (i do not think this really happens much, but it is an important part of the argument that needs to be talked about) so this is sort of free choice in first trimester, more limited choice in second, and almost impossible in third. i think this is what Limits is saying.

    i am sorry if i did not guess right, please do not be mad! as for me i am either 1 or 2 above, sometimes i change. i would like to know where everyone else is.

    i think Limits is being fairly clear and i find it interesting to read the debate. but i cannot tell very well what Grace and RJN think, and i may be wrong about Kate (sorry)

    also maybe one last question:

    if you think that there need to be any limits at all on abortion, like 3 or 4 above, can you say something where you would NOT allow free choice abortion? like “i think a woman should NOT be able to get an abortion when ___ is true, even
    if she really wants to, because ____” (I think Limits has answered this already, and I think Kate said it would never happen, but i do not know how Grace or RJN would answer and i am not sure about Kate)

    thank you for reading and of course you can all ignore the question (i am going to go back and lurk no matter what you say) but if it is possible for you to maybe think about answering it would be very helpful!

  56. 56
    lurker23 says:

    for me here is the difference between 1 2 3 4 as i see it

    1 is completely free choice

    when you move from 1 to 2 the change is that you are agreeing that a fetus can have rights at all before it is born, which is more about philosophy, and maybe makes it harder to argue for number 2, but you still have completely free choice.

    if you move from from 2 to 3 you are agreeing that it is mostly free choice but because of fetus right/morals there are some times, maybe a very small number, where you can make someone have a baby even if they do not want to.

    from 3 to 4 you are saying that it is not mostly free choice, and there are a lot of times (and maybe almost all times in the last month or two) where you can make someone have a baby even if they don’t want to, unless there are really really good reasons.

  57. Lurker,

    You’ve asked some good questions. Speaking for myself, and if I have to accept the the way you have framed your comment, I suppose I am somewhere in the range of 2 and 3. For me, one of the difficulties in this discussion has been the difference between discussing the status of the fetus versus the status of the pregnant person—is the fetus a person? does it have the same rights as a person?—and what legal policy should be concerning abortion. Not that those two things are not, at some point, inextricably related, but I have been more interested in focusing on the former, while I think LoL and others have been talking about the latter as well. I’m not going to try to explain more fully what I mean by this because I simply do not have the time, but I hope that clarifies things at least a little bit.

  58. Given the number of comments (3) that have now had to be deleted for moderation reasons, as well as the tenor of LoL’s most recent response to Grace, I am closing comments for this thread. It was in large measure an interesting conversation and if people would like to take it to an open thread, they can, of course, do so. I won’t be participating anymore, though, I don’t think. I start teaching today and my attention will therefore be elsewhere.