4 ms·

The term "unborn child" presupposes personhood, and "fault" is too strong a term even in quotes. If a person poisons another person deliberately and causes the

The term "unborn child" presupposes personhood, and "fault" is too strong a term even in quotes. If a person poisons another person deliberately and causes their kidneys to fail, it is not an acceptable punishment to take their kidney and give it to their victim. This remains true even when the victim will die and has no other organ source available.

scarmig 4y ago
The argument is an attempt to get around the personhood issue: it's basically an attempt to build a case for abortion even granting fetal personhood, because personhood is very messy, ambiguous, and contentious and an argument for abortion rights that short circuits it would be very powerful.
throwaway894345 4y ago
> The term "unborn child" presupposes personhood. Right, did you miss my disclaimer?: "recall that we're not debating point-of-life at this point in the thread" (based on upthread: "I'll just add that many people who are pro-choice believe that the issue of whether a fetus is a person is irrelevant.") > "fault" is too strong a term even in quotes Yeah, I put it in quotes because I wasn't sure what the analogous term is. "responsibility" is probably better. > If a person poisons another person deliberately and causes their kidneys to fail, it is not an acceptable punishment to take their kidney and give it to their victim. This remains true even when the victim will die and has no other organ source available. It's not about punishment, but about making the victim whole. But as discussed elsewhere, I think this analogy is broken for other reasons--specifically, an abortion is an active procedure to kill a dependent party who would most likely otherwise survive, while our analogy posits a dependent party who would die without active intervention. The analogy postulates the state requiring an intervention to preserve life, but an abortion ban is a prohibition on interventions which stop life.

scarmig 4y ago

The argument is an attempt to get around the personhood issue: it's basically an attempt to build a case for abortion even granting fetal personhood, because personhood is very messy, ambiguous, and contentious and an argument for abortion rights that short circuits it would be very powerful.

throwaway894345 4y ago

> The term "unborn child" presupposes personhood. Right, did you miss my disclaimer?: "recall that we're not debating point-of-life at this point in the thread" (based on upthread: "I'll just add that many people who are pro-choice believe that the issue of whether a fetus is a person is irrelevant.") > "fault" is too strong a term even in quotes Yeah, I put it in quotes because I wasn't sure what the analogous term is. "responsibility" is probably better. > If a person poisons another person deliberately and causes their kidneys to fail, it is not an acceptable punishment to take their kidney and give it to their victim. This remains true even when the victim will die and has no other organ source available. It's not about punishment, but about making the victim whole. But as discussed elsewhere, I think this analogy is broken for other reasons--specifically, an abortion is an active procedure to kill a dependent party who would most likely otherwise survive, while our analogy posits a dependent party who would die without active intervention. The analogy postulates the state requiring an intervention to preserve life, but an abortion ban is a prohibition on interventions which stop life.