Objection to medical and induction abortion get at the heart of PL's true belief: fetuses are entitled to your body

Exploring the PL claim that “letting die” is the same thing as killing them

I've seen a PL counter argument to the "letting die" PC argument. The PC argument is about inducing a miscarriage or labor (or preventing implantation) on a non-viable embryo or fetus. When done on a non-viable embryo or fetus, the embryo or fetus is not directly touched or harmed. It is disconnected from the maternal body and it dies due to It's inability to carry out vital organ system function. The internal workings of the embryo are not directly interfered with – they are actually left solely to their own biological activities. In doing so, pregnancy is actually “intervening” in the course of events that would occur if an embryo were left solely to its own biological activities. Choosing not to intervene with someone's biological activities in a way that demands your own is not a violation of another human's rights.

Plers try to get around this by speaking in euphemisms such as “pregnancy is natural” “that's what the uterus is meant for” or “embryos are perfectly healthy.” In doing so, however, they are actually resting those views in the biological reality that pregnancy is biological intervening in an embryo's sole biological course of events that would result in its death otherwise. And it does so by using the pregnant person's own biological processes, which always remain under the direct preview of the rights of the pregnant person. This is the fatal flaw of anti-abortion ideology.

PLers have to either assert the claim that a pregnant person's rights are not at play here, or obfuscate their rights by couching honoring of them as immoral and vilifying those humans

Abortion bans rest on the biological realities of pregnancy – if a fetus doesn't have another human who can carry out their biological processes for them, they'll die. Yet in trying to assert that a pregnant person's rights are not at play, they would have to deny biological realities of pregnancy - the very realities they have to acknowledge in order to justify abortion bans. If a fetus requires my biological functions to live, well those biological functions are within my human rights to control.

One PL counter claim to this is that it's still killing. And they'll often use the dis-analogous, mocking example of "I didn't kill that person when I shot them, the bullet killed them." It's dis-analogous because shooting a person isn't "letting them die." To them, the analogous situation comes in via the underlying premise that you've taken away that human's ability to regulate their vital organ system function.

In this sense, both directly killing someone by shooting them, or indirectly killing them by removing them from your uterus, are analogous because something has been taken from the human that they needed in order to regulate their vital organ system function. Their conclusion is that therefore, this is immoral.

But why would it be immoral? It's not that they believe something was taken from them, it's that they believe something was taken from them that they were entitled to. In the case of the shot person, what was taken from them was something that belonged to them.*(see bottom for a side note to organ donation) Their body belonged to them and you took away their body's ability to maintain life.

But this is where the PL's attempt to obscure pregnancy realities and differences comes in. This is where their desire to ensure our pregnancies don't end, butt up against this major flaw, an unspoken implication, in their ideology: they believe a pregnant person's biological processes are something a fetus is entitled to. It's the problem the majority of them don't want to verbally address because it reveals something putrid about their position. Or to some, it's a problem they don't even realize they are implying and will have trouble seeing because something as pure as “not wanting babies to be murdered” couldn't possibly require another human has a right to another human's body.

They might try to avert from this distasteful reality by saying “they don't have a right to your body, you just don't have the right to kill them.” Yet if removing them from my body is “killing” them, then clearly my body is something they would have a right to.

In the case of a shot person, all you would have taken from them was that person's ability of maintaining their life. Nothing you took belonged to you. In the case of the embryo, what you took was your body's ability of maintaining life for them. What you took, did belong to you. One human is biologically autonomous from you, thus your biological rights are not at play, by the other is not biologically autonomous, and thus your biological rights are at play. Which is why they are dis-analogous scenarios.

They'll also try to say things like “well you just wanted to have consequence free sex.” Or worse, they'll infer our bodies are just “conveniences” by saying that pregnancy is just “an inconvenience.”

The conclusion that “their” body's ability to maintain life was what was taken from them, is wrong:

Viewing abortion as immoral because it is taking something from an embryo that they were entitled to is problematic for several underlying reasons. One, the embryo doesn't have vital organ system function - this is why a person is pregnant and why pregnancy is part of the reproductive process.

If what you took from the embryo was what it needed to maintain life, then it's clear that it couldn't maintain life without it. If it couldn't maintain life without it, then how can you conclude that what was taken from them was their body's ability to maintain life. And more importantly conclude that this was somehow theirs.

PL arguments don't actually engage with this line of thought process – it's why they think that abortion is analogous to shooting someone. If they engaged with it, they would have to admit that your body is the embryos' to be entitled to. They aren't saying that your body is the embryo's; they are saying that your body is something the embryo is entitled to. The biological realities of pregnancy conclude this to be naturally true. That entitlement is "theirs." If the embryo is entitled to your body, then no violation of your rights can have occurred. And on that same note, if the embryo is not entitled to your body, then no violation of their rights can have occurred through abortion.

They'll dance around this concept and couch it in factors that make it more palatable to digest. Concepts that demonize humans who have the ability to fall pregnant by saying things like "well parental responsibility" or "you made the choice to have sex."

The conclusion of what was taken from the embryo, is wrong:

Their arguments might also try to dance around the concept of what actually was taken from them, but that, too, falls flat on its face. They'll say things like "every parent has the responsibility to feed their child. Pregnancy is how you nourish your baby. We are only requiring that you feed your baby, just as we equally require all parents to feed their born children." An 18 week old fetus can be born and given a baby bottle with formula in it. How is this somehow not feeding your child? Why are born humans and unborn humans equal and the same only when it's convenient for them?

The reason they find this laughable and absurd is because an 18 week old fetus can't do anything with that bottle. But this isn't an issue with my argument, it's an issue with theirs. The 18 weeker's is incapable of swallowing and digesting the food you've provided for its nourishment. The difference between a healthy infant born at 18 weeks and one born healthy at 40 weeks, isn't that nourishment isn't being provided to them – it clearly is. The issue is their body. One has vital organ system function. The other does not. This isn't about "food," it's about the fetal body. And this is where the fatal flaw in PL reasoning comes back into play - the only way a fetus at 18 weeks can survive is if it has your vital organ system function operating biologically for it.

Yet your body is yours. When you "take it" from others, no rights are violated. So if they are saying it isn't a violation of your rights to not be able to remove a fetus from your body, what they are implicating then is that the fetus has rights to these biological processes of your body. The only way your rights can't be violated is if you don't have any.

Saying we are responsible for “nourishing” an 18 week old fetuses body with our own biological processes, saying we are morally culpable for the death of the 18 weeker through induction, can only be claimed if the belief is that the fetus has some right to our body to be “nourished” in this fashion. That's that true absurdity here. But the counter absurdity to that is PL trying to claim that fetuses are equal and the same. If they were equal and the same, then they would not see giving a baby bottle to a newborn infant born at 18 weeks as a violation of their rights. And the reason they see it as a violation of their rights is because they recognize that a fetus is biologically unified with a pregnant person and that pregnant person does not have the right to end their pregnancy because the fetus has the right to be there.

And this is why they want to obscure the relevancy of pregnancy to you, the relevancy of your rights to your body. Their rhetoric requires not speaking about pregnancy in such a manner that it benefits the pregnant person's position and the pregnant person's right. Instead, they hold the position that abortion bans don't violate a pregnant person's rights. They try to obscure it, but their beliefs can only be held by believing the embryo has a right to your body.

Only you have the right to your body. Afab can become pregnant, and pregnancy, as such, is something within their right to control, both prior and during.

Every way a conclusion is drawn that a fetus' rights were violated if they are allowed to “let die”, is flawed.

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*From side note above:

How could you have taken this from them when what you really did was introduce something to their body? I think this is a good exploration when highlighting the analogies and disanalogies of organ donation to PL ideology, because there, you've not introduced something to the organ recipient, nor the embryo that has been removed via induced miscarriage. If it's not about “introducing” something to the other person's body, then refusing to donate an organ to someone would have to be considered killing – and immoral - as well. Yet to Plers and Pcers alike, it's not. Which leaves taking something from someone in which they were entitled to.

And the reason they aren't the same to PLers is actually tied to the reason why their claim that "letting die" is still killing that human.

In the case of medical or induction abortion, you've not introduced anything to the embryo's body – you've taken something from their body. The only way you can get around this is by describing the biological realities – specifically the differences - of pregnancy, to that of born humans. (The very differences that PL rhetoric avoids because it nullifies bolstered benefits of the embryo that can only exist for biologically autonomous humans and directly benefits the pregnant person.) In doing so, a Pler would have to admit that your body is a vital life sustaining function to the embryo, which then delves into territory in which is yours to lay claim to: your body. And PL rhetoric is imbued with “we aren't trying to control you body” and “not your body, not your choice” ideology. Remember choosing not to interfere with someone's biological activities in a way that demands your own is not a violation of another human's rights.