Re: More Than She Bargained For (or, Abortions for Health Reasons)

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Savard) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Occasionally, some posters have claimed that it is hypocritical to
> want to ban abortion, and make an exception when the woman faces a
> medical complication of pregnancy.
> 
> It's wrong to kill people, and if abortion really is killing a
> defenceless baby, and one rejects the other argument for choice, that
> the woman has some special rights due to the fact that pregnancy
> involves her own body, 

No more special rights than anyone else would have in the case of an
unwanted foreign presence in her body.

> killing a fetus to save the mother's life is
> just as bad as killing a three-year old to obtain a lifesaving
> transplant organ for her.
> 
> It is true that the pro-life argument rests on seeing a woman having
> an abortion as preying upon the fetus instead of the fetus gestating
> within the woman as preying upon the woman. The notion that pregnancy
> is predation by the fetus is rejected: it's a natural part of the
> human life cycle.

It is also a natural part of the plasmodium lifecycle to live inside
humans. Nonetheless, we call it predation.

> If a married woman having an abortion because of an unexpected
> pregnancy complication is not predation, but a single woman having an
> abortion because of an unexpected pregnancy is predation, then one
> does have to establish just what the difference is.
> 
> Because the argument introduced at this point from the pro-choice side
> would be: ah, you can imagine your wife having a medical problem, so
> you sympathize with that... but you think your daughter believes - or
> you want to force her to believe - your ideas about proper behavior,
> so she would *never* let herself get in trouble.
> 
> Thus, there has to be a meaningful difference between the two cases,
> other than the "obvious" one that supports the idea that opposing
> abortion is just a front for a (not very well) hidden agenda of
> imposing chastity by force.
> 
> But from the pro-life perspective, the difference is obvious.
> 
> Despite the existence of a certain probability of complications in
> pregnancy, that probability is small. So if a complication happens,
> then its "probability", at 100%, is much higher than the average
> value. Something very unexpected has happened, something
> uncontrollable, and abortion in those circumstances doesn't create a
> major new hazard for unborn children. (Often, the fetus would die
> shortly after the mother did in many such situations, even if there
> are a few exceptions, as well.)
> 
> Abortion just in order to escape pregnancy itself, rather than a
> serious complication, however, means that any fetus conceived within a
> woman who would seek one were she to become pregnant has a 100% chance
> of being aborted. So it is no longer just a hazard that fetuses might
> face. And in that case, the pregnancy can be avoided: avoid the sex
> act, or use contraceptives.

Aren't you biasing your sample, by choosing just those which are not
wanted ? I'd say the dominant risk for a zygote is still death to
spontaneous abortion.

> Complications of pregnancy can't be avoided that way by people who
> want children.
> 
> But what is the dividing line? What makes a complication of pregnancy
> serious enough to warrant abortion? After all, without complications,
> pregnancy comes with a certain level of risk.
> 
> One simple rule would be that when the risk *increases significantly*
> above the value that comes with pregnancy, the risk the woman now
> faces is beyond the value which she agreed to initially when she
> allowed herself to become pregnant.

The risk level to which a woman *agrees* when she has sex is identical
to the risk level to which a woman *agrees* when she drives a car:
*zero*.

> Of course, this line of argument would lead to the conclusion that the
> natural risks of pregnancy, although very low, would serve as a
> justification for abortion in the case of rape. Since they're minor in
> comparison to other factors present, it would seem they're serving
> only as an excuse. As I've noted, if a basis for tolerating very early
> abortions can be accepted, that would be a better way to cover this
> case.
> But there is another problem here.
> 
> Sex doesn't come with a 100% chance of pregnancy. Why can't we view
> pregnancy as a complication of sex, and say that since a woman only
> agreed to a small probability, not a certainty, of pregnancy by
> consenting to sex, 

She didn't *agree* to no probability at all when having sex. See the
comparison with entering traffic.

BTW, I'd be interested if, in your opinion, her situation is different
if she has used contraception which failed. As I see it, in this case
she could not  have made it plainer that she did not agree to any risk
at all.

IOW, that we have assumed a risk does not mean that we have agreed to
the potential negative consequences - especially if we have a right to
do what we did.

>she should, by the same reasoning, be able to have
> an abortion with unwanted pregnancy alone as the reason?

> The difference is: a woman who wishes to have a child, but has the
> slight normal risk of a pregnancy complication for which abortion may
> be indicated, is subjecting, with a certain probability, a child to a
> small risk of death - at the moment she decides to engage in sex.

And she should thus be charged with reckless endangering - if an
embryo actually *was* a child.

> Should she face a life-threatening pregnancy complication, then
> although a fetus now faces certain death, against that her own life is
> weighed.
> 
> A woman who does not wish to have a child, and intends to have an
> abortion should she become pregnant, on the other hand, is taking a
> small risk, when she engages in unprotected or inadequately protected
> sex - of imposing certain death on a fetus when her own life is not in
> the balance.

Her life may not be in the balance. Her liberty and body integrity are
both in the balance, however. It is generally agreed that both rights
justify self-defense with lethal methods, if no other method will end
the infringement.
> 
> In the former case, murder is never committed; either only a small
> risk is imposed, or death is being done in a tragic circumstance where
> total loss of life is minimized thereby. In the latter case, there is
> a point in the process where one is taking innocent life 

This "innocent life" attacks the woman by injecting her with hormones.

>without
> commensurate pressing need.

Since when must we justify the exercise of a right by a pressing need
? Do we have to prove a pressing need to speak when we exercise our
freedom of speech ? Does a woman have to prove a pressing need when
she defends herself against a rapist ?

Regards,
HRG.