the cuppboard

badwolfcomplex:

Reblogging (with permission) because this is a fantastic example of genuine pro-life thinking, as well as how to respond to loaded and fallacious anti-life questions. I also couldn’t resist adding my own commentary at the bottom. (Sorry for any formatting issues, it gave me a lot of trouble for some reason.)

quietly-living-life asked:

So you think that the life of an unthinking, unfeeling, unknowing first-trimester fetus is more important than the health and well-being of the woman who’s carrying that fetus? I mean, what if going through with the pregnancy would be traumatic, harmful, or even life-threatening for her? Do you just not care about her at all, just so long as the fetus inside of her isn’t harmed? Can you not see how hateful that mindset is?

themorningstars replied:

Hannah, I understand that the running stereotype about pro-lifers is that they “do not care about anything but fetuses.” That they are “hateful” and “just do not care about women at all.” I know this stereotype very well. In fact, I once believed it. But you are engaged in many conversations with many different pro-lifers, and none of these conversations will ever be productive if we can’t move beyond stereotypes. I promise I will not make any assumptions about you; I only ask that you offer me the same courtesy.

In the spirit of not making assumptions, there are two main things that stand out to me about your questions, and I would like you to clarify:  There is an emphasis on consciousness, on feeling.  The fetus lacks consciousness; the woman is fully conscious.  If the rightness or wrongness of an act depends upon how everyone thinks or feels about it, then, yes, absolutely, you are right: the fetus is not cognitively advanced enough to understand what it is to live or to die and, if killed, will NEVER reach the point where (s)he is able to understand or to care; the fetus’ feelings on the matter are a moot point; and the woman who seeks an abortion (let’s say that she does so without any coercion/pressure from outside sources) obviously has some feelings on the matter, so whatever the woman wants must be right.

But are you SURE that the value of a life depends on how people feel about it?  Is that truly the standard by which you think your worth should be measured? Would that then mean that, if you believe that your life is not worth living, then it is truly not?  Or if your mom believes that your life is not worth living, then it truly is not? Or is there maybe some sort of democratic process going on here? If enough people think you’re worth it, then you are? How do you ground your worth?  How do you ground the worth of your friends? What do you say to the person who has lost everything? Who has no one to love her? Who has been called “inconvenient” and been cast aside by everyone she has ever known? Who has accomplished nothing she or anyone else would call “worthwhile”? Who has believed all of their lies and now wishes to take her life? Maybe she WISHES she had been aborted; she believes it would have been better to have never been born than to have to live in this misery. What do you say to her? Is she right? Is she truly worth nothing? I think we all know intuitively that she is wrong. The question is why is she wrong. What is she worth and why is she worth anything at all? I ask you to think about it. I see some consequentialist thinking at work here.   You speak a lot about the consequences of “going through with the pregnancy.”  That makes me wonder two things:

a) At first, it sounded as though you might be making the case that a life’s worth depends upon how people feel about it.  The fetus can’t feel; the mother can.  But now, it sounds like you might actually be saying that, actually, the worth of a life depends upon the impact that life has: worthwhile lives have good consequences for those around them; worthless lives bring “trauma,” “harm,” and “life-threatening” conditions.  Is that what you believe?  That a person who, through no fault of his own (because let’s face it, a fetus is not some sort of evil mastermind who weasels his way into your womb in order to bring doom and destruction upon your life), causes difficulty is worth nothing?  That your worth depends on how many good fruits your existence bears? I don’t know about you, but my life often has negative consequences for those around me, THROUGH MY OWN FAULT.  According to that kind of consequentialist thinking, I must be REALLY worthless. Or no? Would you not be willing to look me in the eye and say that to me? If not, then…why? 

b) Further, do the ends justify the means?  If you have good intentions—to keep a woman from facing something difficult or painful or, perhaps, even to save her life—does that automatically justify any means you might use to achieve that end?  In this case, we are talking about the taking of innocent life.  MURDER.  That is truly what we are talking about here.  We are talking about committing murder in order to serve the “greater good.”  Are you truly comfortable with using that principle as a yardstick by which to determine the moral status of ALL acts?  If we’re going to have a coherent system of moral reasoning, it needs to be consistent.  I see a few different strains of moral thinking in your questions, and I’m not sure which you truly subscribe to.  Again, what makes human life valuable?  Do you hold that all human lives are equally valuable?  If not, then which lives are more valuable and what essential principle are you using to justify that claim? and what exactly do we mean by “more valuable”?  what does “value” mean?

To address your questions about maternal health and maternal death:

Let’s first be clear about the basic moral principle we are operating under here.  The principle is: it is ALWAYS wrong, no matter the circumstances, no matter what greater end you think you’re serving, to deliberately end an innocent life. No exceptions. That is the central tenet of the pro-life movement. Again, if that is not a principle you can get behind, then propose a different one, but make sure you’re willing to apply it in ALL cases.

In the case of a pregnant woman, where there are two lives involved, a doctor is morally obliged to: a) take no action to DELIBERATELY end the life of either mother or child, and b) to fight as hard as humanly possible to protect both lives.  In the very rare case where a pregnancy puts the life of the mother at risk (yes, this is rare), it is still not morally acceptable to deliberately kill the child, no.  The child is not some sort of aggressive parasite who exists to ruin his mother’s life; he is innocent; and he is exactly where he naturally belongs at this stage in his development—in his mother’s womb. 

HOWEVER, that does not mean that procedures to save the mother’s life which indirectly result in fetal death are condemned.  An excerpt from Catholic Encyclopedia (a reliable resource for explanations of Church teaching): 

“However, if medical treatment or surgical operation, necessary to save a mother’s life, is applied to her organism (though the child’s death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal life is thereby directly attacked.Moralists agree that we are not always prohibited from doing what is lawful in itself, though evil consequences may follow which we do not desire. The good effects of our acts are then directly intended, and the regretted evil consequences are reluctantly permitted to follow because we cannot avoid them. The evil thus permitted is said to be indirectly intended. It is not imputed to us provided four conditions are verified, namely:

• That we do not wish the evil effects, but make all reasonable efforts to avoid them;
• That the immediate effect be good in itself;
• That the evil is not made a means to obtain the good effect; for this would be to do evil that good might come of it — a procedure never allowed;
• That the good effect be as important at least as the evil effect.

All four conditions may be verified in treating or operating on a woman with child. The death of the child is not intended, and every reasonable precaution is taken to save its life; the immediate effect intended, the mother’s life, is good — no harm is done to the child in order to save the mother — the saving of the mother’s life is in itself as good as the saving of the child’s life.”

It is a great tragedy when any life is lost, whether it be the life of a full-grown woman or of an unborn child; I weep for both. Being pro-life means just that…we are pro-LIFE.  We will fight for your life when you are in your mother’s womb.  We will fight for your life as a newborn.  As a child.  As a teenager.  As an adult.  As an elderly person.  No one who is sincerely pro-life would ever, ever take lightly the great tragedy of a mother’s death.  Nor a child’s death.  It is gut-wrenching. 

Being pro-life is a way of life. It means loving people—loving them fiercely and sincerely—at all stages of their lives. Loving the outcast. Loving the poor. Loving the weak. Loving the strong and rich, too. I think, Hannah, that the issue here might be that we have radically different conceptions of what it means to love someone.

If I love you, then I desire the very best for you. But what do we mean by “the best”? Do we mean just…whatever you think is best? whatever feels best? or might there be things which are inherently good regardless of how anyone thinks or feels about them? and, likewise, things which are inherently bad?

Though you may disagree with me, let’s, for the sake of argument, pretend that we can agree on this basic principle: it is always wrong to deliberately take an innocent life. If that basic moral principle is true, then we can identify murder as an inherent moral ill. Does it truly make sense to say: “It is good for me to commit an inherent moral wrong”?

On a surface level, it might seem good for you. Sure. You commit the moral wrong in the service of some other good, and that other good seems to satisfy you. It has positive consequences in your life. Everything seems way, way better now that you are no longer carrying the burden of motherhood. But is it truly?

If something is inherently wrong, that should reveal something to us: IT ISN’T GOOD. It might, in some cases, produce good feelings. But there is a difference between something “feeling good” and actually being good. I mean, I think broccoli tastes terrible, but it’s way better for you than ice cream, which tastes great. It shouldn’t be hard to us to understand that, sometimes, that which is best for you is hard to swallow. But, if your mom made you eat broccoli when you were a kid, would you say that she did that because she hated you? That, if she truly loved you, she would have fed you nothing but ice cream because it was what you liked best?

I do not believe that love says, “Do whatever feels best to you.” Apathy says that. Love, on the other hand, is invested. Love cares about what you do because love cares about YOU. It’s annoying sometimes, to be loved. But my point is: if you truly love someone, you won’t just care if they feel good; you will care if they actually are good. That they are really and truly Okay. That they aren’t wounded; that they are whole and full of joy.

I am going to be very frank: killing your own child is not a good strategy for achieving a life of wholeness and joy. It might feel like it at the time. Maybe it will still feel like it years later. (Though, for many, many women this is not the case. See Project Rachel. I am sure you have heard of women suffering severe psychological distress after abortions, not to mention physical trauma, not to mention death.) But it is bizarre to suggest that doing something inherently bad will be good for you, isn’t it?

By “good for you,” we really mean “healthy,” right? When you are healthy, you are functioning normally. Everything is working according to how it naturally should. Moral wrongs are necessarily contrary to the way a human being naturally ought to behave. They are “morally unhealthy,” if you will. As in, they involve an improper use of your moral capacity—“the will”—your ability to make choices.

When your physical body is in poor health, it is a real problem. Anyone who loves you will want you to be in good health. It is the same for our hearts. It is a real problem when our hearts, our spirits, whatever term you would like to use, are in poor health, and anyone who loves you will want to encourage you to make healthy choices and will be absolutely heartbroken to see you making unhealthy choices. Because you actually matter. Because you actually deserve good things. TRULY good things.

Any given choice cannot be simultaneously good/healthy and inherently wrong. The two are necessarily opposed. If it is true that murder is inherently wrong, and that abortion is murder, then it is necessarily true that abortion is not good or healthy for women. Again, it may FEEL good. It may LOOK like it should be good. But it will never actually BE good. Appearances can be deceiving. They are not a good foundation for a robust system of moral reasoning.

I have not said nearly as much as could be said, but I am going to cut myself off now. Many pro-lifers have provided you with long, thoughtful replies. Hopefully, we have successfully answered some of your questions.

I just want to say THANK YOU for this fantastic reply.

A minor note: I’m personally hesitant to invoke the categorical imperative (“it should only be done if everyone should do it always and everywhere”), but it does serve nicely in this presentation to emphasize the fact that murder is intrinsically wrong, and therefore never, ever, acceptable.

For future reference, fellow pro-lifers, please attend: when you get questions like the ones Hannah tends to ask, it helps to be able to identify the assumptions and logical fallacies buried in the questions. Without being able to break them down, answering is futile.  Aurora did a beautiful job of that, as her response shows; I’m going to dissect the questions themselves.

First, Hannah asked: So you think that the life of an unthinking, unfeeling, unknowing first-trimester fetus is more important than the health and well-being of the woman who’s carrying that fetus?

Most pro-choicers know perfectly well that pro-lifers do not believe a fetus to be non-sentient in the way described by those adjectives. Thus she’s “begging the question”: assuming what needs to be proven in order for her argument to make sense. She’s assuming that a fetus is not a child but instead an unidentifiable clump of cells, perhaps not even human, with no value. “Value” she leaves undefined.

Second, she asks: I mean, what if going through with the pregnancy would be traumatic, harmful, or even life-threatening for her?

This question assumes that difficult pregnancies are not worth carrying. As Aurora points out, this is “consequentialist” thinking: assuming value is determined by consequences, usually by how “pleasurable” and immediately pleasing consequences are. This is a philosophical position that doesn’t really stand up to logical reasoning, as Aurora points out: sometimes, painful things are good, and pleasurable things are bad. Again, the value of the pregnancy/fetus is assumed nil, but never proven to be so.

Finally, she asks: Do you just not care about her at all, just so long as the fetus inside of her isn’t harmed? Can you not see how hateful that mindset is?

This question relies on the stereotype, repeatedly debunked in real life and on tumblr, that pro-lifers “only” care about fetuses. This charge is frequently leveled against pro-lifers when the interlocutor has run out of ideas: it relies on hysteria and pure emotion, having nothing to do with the actual question of what value or worth a fetus has, and is usually part of an extended ad hominem attack. Not to mention, when someone is given repeated empirical evidence that proves otherwise and still refuses to believe it, it’s probably just wisest to leave it at that: that kind of prejudice and “blind faith” isn’t going to be easily overcome.

TL;DR: Look for bad assumptions in anti-life questions first, because it drastically improves your answers, and look to Aurora’s essay as a good model of how to do it. :)