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What if the fetus is a potential zombie?

After browsing through the leftosphere, I decided to scrub myself clean by reading some reasonable stuff. "Philosophy, Et Cetera" is always interesting and educational... hmmm, would that be "eduresting"? I noticed the post "Obligations Beyond the Fetus" that responds to Kevin T. Keith's argument in "Obligations to the Fetus" that the pregnant woman taking medicine that will cause the baby to be born handicapped is not morally wrong, since at that time, the fetus is not a person who has interests. Quite commendably, Kevin is quite explicit about this:

Pregnant women should be free to engage in activities that raise a serious threat of birth defects. They should also be free to choose to abort fetuses with known or potential birth defects (or any other fetuses). In fact, they should be free to do either or both of those things in the course of a given pregnancy.

The reason is a variation on the same reason abortion itself is justified: the fetus, in its early stages at least, is not a person and has no moral interests (just as Serge correctly stated). Hence, it is subject to no moral harms, even if it suffers circumstances that give rise to conditions later in its life that are undesirable. Thus there is no moral duty owed to it to protect it from the harms it is incapable of suffering.

Now, it is easy to see the motivation behind such absolutism. Kevin is simply afraid that if he concedes that it is wrong for a pregnant woman to intentionally take thalidomide and thus harm the future person that the fetus would later develop into, this would somehow also collapse the pro-choice argument for abortion. Surely killing does harm the future person even worse than even thalidomide, yes? And I have actually seen this line of reasoning being used at "The Evangelical Outpost", where I responded to this in comments pretty much the same way as Richard at Philosophy, etc.

The essential difference between taking thalidomide and aborting the pregnancy is that in the former case, in future there will be an actual person who will be harmed, whereas in the latter case, no person who has existed, exists now or will exist who will be harmed but only potential people are hurt. So there is no contradiction in being pro-choice but opposing intentionally harming those fetuses who will grow up to be persons.

And just as Richard points out in the comments, this problem can't be avoided even by the pro-lifers who assume that fetuses are persons with rights. Only the very nuttiest pro-lifers believe that sperm and ova are persons with rights, so why would it be wrong to irradiate or genetically manipulate sperm or ova in ways that later cause the baby to be somehow disabled or some defective way?

If we don't grant rights to actual persons who live in the future, very well then, what is the harm of burying a landmine with a timer that activates this mine after two hundred years? This landmine cannot possibly harm anybody who is an actual person right now, but it can harm only potential persons in the future. But even though we don't know which of the near-infinite number of potential people this landmine will eventually harm, we know that there will be some actual person who it will harm, or at least has an unacceptably high risk of harming. Even though potential people don't have rights, actual people do, even if they happen to live in the future. Otherwise, pray tell, how far to the future do we need to go until the person there is "unreal" enough not to have any rights so that I don't need to care about him in the choices I make? A year? A day? A second? A picosecond?

Of course, this problem also includes the questions whether being disabled is in some way "worse" than being able-bodied. Aren't we all just "temporarily abled" anyway, and besides, who can really say that some things are ever better than some other things? Are you perhaps implying that disabled people are somehow worse than the able-bodied people, you... you... fucking nazi fucker pig? Second, we must remember that women have an absolute and inviolable right to their bodily autonomy. Attempts to restrict the right of the strong kickass wimmin to do anything they want to their bodies in any way whatsoever are nothing but patriarchal, sexist oppression.

1 comment

Your quote that women can "do anything they want to their bodies in any way whatsoever" is an interesting statement.

Socrates was famous for taking a supposition (in this case, that a woman has complete autonomy over her body) and asking questions until he subtly revealed the illogic of the statement.

In this vein, let me pose a series of questions to you which you should answer in the order they are posed:

Does doing "anything they want to their bodies in any way whatsoever" include drug use and getting drunk?

Does "anything" also allow you the autonomy to operate a car?

What about driving a car while using alcohol or drugs?

What about wearing anything you want?

Then could you wear a bomb on your person?

Could you then push a button to detonate the device - it's your body after all, right?

If so, then could you also do this anywhere you want, any time you wish?

By answering no to any of these questions, you in effect reject the absolutism of your own claim and invalidate your initial supposition. I would simply challenge you to painfully think out the ultimate logical consequences of your beliefs then decide if you still adhere to them. What have you got to lose?

Jim

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