Fetal Personhood=Red Herring

[happiestsadist]

Anyone who has ever gotten into the Abortion Argument has seen the anti-choicers start bleating on that a fetus/zygote/blastocyst is a person, or a human if they think they're being very clever. And then much of the time, the conversation then turns to whether or not this is in fact the case

Comments

[flewellyn]

I agree!

Edit: In fact, to totally take the wind out of their sails, if someone says to me "Life begins at conception!", I will say "Yes, it does. That's trivially true, and completely irrelevant."

And if they press the issue, I will phrase it like this: doing something to someone else's body without their consent is assault. Pregnancy can be life-threatening. Therefor, if the fetus is indeed a human being, if the woman doesn't want it in her body, it is committing deadly assault upon her person, and she is entitled to kill it in self-defense.

[happiestsadist]

Well said over there. :) (Though it could be said that seeing as an egg cell is alive, and those are formed really early, life could begin shortly after the woman's conception. Which might break their brains.)

And damn good point.

[flewellyn]

Thankee much.

Personally, I think abortions should be rocket-powered.

Because it would be really funny to see a fetus flying out of a woman's vagina at several hundred miles per hour.

[happiestsadist]

Could there be targets?

[doctoreon]

Anyone who thinks personhood matters in the debate should be sent to re-read Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous violinist thought experiment.

[happiestsadist]

Agreed.

[doctoreon]

It's really disheartening when people don't understand it, though. It really reveals their disregard for the agency of women.

[nico_noire]

The counterpoint that comes to my mind is that by partaking in action resulting in conception, by conceiving, the woman has by default consented to the resulting co-use of her body by the fetus. At this point terminology does become consequential for the purpose of establishing rights

[doctoreon]

Wouldn't the term "unwanted pregnancy" defuse the idea that the fetus was implanted "willfully?" All you have to do is ask the woman, "Hey, did you want that fetus there when you had sex?" "No!" "Oh ok, I see that it was not willful."

[flewellyn]

But that assumes women are not just for having babies, and sex is not just for procreation!

[doctoreon]

GDI, you got me there!

[morpheus0013]

It was a handy tactic for the anti-choicers to use, and unfortunately we never focused our attention on it in any effective way and weren't able to counter it too well. It's all about controlling the dialogue, which sadly the antis had a corner on for a looong time.

[happiestsadist]

It really did work amazingly for them, and we've lost a lot of ground because of it.

[matrexius]

Yeah, you posted something along these lines recently in my journal, and I do agree. It's the same thing as the "Is sexual orientation a choice?" stuff that people throw around in debates about gay rights. It doesn't matter whether it is (though it's not); all that matters is consent.

[morpheus0013]

Years ago, there was a study published--something to the effect of the inner ear being shaped differently in gay males than in straight males. I was discussing the article with someone and was fairly excited that we might be finding more evidence that sexual orientation is biologically based, and he said to me, "Why does it matter?"

That one question opened up such a world of perspective to me.

[happiestsadist]

Yeah, that comment was what made me write this, heh.