Just so you don’t think I’ve gone soft on parents with my last entry, here are two parents I wouldn’t mind putting down like rabid dogs. I have also been told that the girl in question has cerebral palsy, so this is a double-whammy of evil: willfully having a compromised child, and then beating her.

From Childfreedom.

There is a web site called Secret Confessions, where people send in their anonymous stories (or reply to said stories) on various topics. The particular topic I want to talk about is called “I hate being a mom.“

While I admit this is not an argument against the pro-choice position or the anti-abortion position per se, I think no discussion of the abortion issue can ignore the regrets that women (and men) can get from having children. We hear a great deal about regrets that women get from aborting; we hear a great deal about how wonderful it is to have children; we hear a great deal about how selfish we are for not having children (as if there are any reasons for having children that are not completely and utterly selfish); we hear little about the other side, and when we do, it’s always accompanied by a mandatory “but it’s all worth it!”. Because this is a taboo topic in our societies, the only way we can get such confessions is through the anonymity of the Internet. This is why pages of this nature as so useful.

Here are some of the confessions for you to peruse.

***
I’m so happy to have found this site too! Isn’t it nice to know you’re not the only one? Sometimes when I’m walking around with my daughter at the zoo and see all the other mothers with their stair-stepper kids, like 3 or 4 kids right in a row and a baby on the way I think “what’s wrong with me? why can’t I do it like her?” I wonder why I feel so sad and depressed all the time. My daughter is beautiful and wonderful, smart and fun…but she’s the ONLY thing in my life. I’m a single mom and I won’t complain about that, actually I’d rather do this by myself than also have to handle her biological father and all of his baggage. He’s not involved with us at all, haven’t even gotten a phone call from him since her first birthday and my feeling is “with a father like that who needs a father?” I’m all she needs and more than enough. I’m a great mom and super patient and she’s a VERY involved child. Not much independent play or anything like that…it’s pretty much complete interface from her waking moment until I have to rock her to sleep every night for an hour! Then she’s awake during the night too, like every 90 minutes she comes to get me. I, too, feel like I can’t handle it. I feel like I’m being completely suffocated and there’s no way out. I understand loving your children but hating this motherhood gig! It’s incredible. I feel terrified when I realize how much of myself is left to me…none, absolutely none at all. It’s crazy! I get up with her in the morning and struggle with her over eating a good breakfast, I play with her and then struggle with her to get dressed, then we battle to get into the carseat, and I drop her off to daycare, where we struggle with one another there! I go to work and pick her up and battle over eating dinner (and it’s completely mystifying when the daycare lady tells me what a total delight she was, how she ate her lunch, cleaned up her toys and went down for her nap without so much as a sneeze!), then the bedtime (the most completely horrifying moments of my day) begins…and goes on for 2 1/2 hours sometimes. I cry and ask God to help me. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Then I have to go to bed because I know I’ll need the energy for the next day…because she’ll be waking me up all night long too. When she puts her little arms around me and tells me how much she loves me I’m dying inside because I think about what a horrible person I am for hating this. How can I hate it when she’s so beautiful and sweet? I feel like going to work is my only break and I can’t imagine if I was a stay-at-home mom (which I was for her first year and a half so I know what that’s like, too). I’m so sorry for all the tears you shed and your feelings of helplessness. I know what it’s like. Hang in there!
***
I have battled with feeling like I do not want my children from the moment my first daughter was born. Every single day is a massive struggle for me. I find myself unable to cope with my girls and I manage by booking them into expensive child care settings / and offloading them to family whenever possible. The very minute I get them back I want them gone again and I am contemplating putting myself into a clinic of some sort whilst I get my head right. I want the kids to be taken into Foster Care until I feel like I can actually enjoy them and not dread having to look after them. I have absolutely no maternal instincts what so ever and even when the kids are hurt I find myself going through the motions without actually caring about them much. I have to remind myself to kiss them good night because this is not natural to me. I find interaction with them virtually impossible and I will take them out all of the time to avoid it. That way they can amuse themselves. I am seeing a therapist about this because I also have 2 step children and I have come to absolutely hate my step son and my marriage is dangling on by a thread. I have been told that I have suffered post natal depression that was undiagnosed. My oldest daughter also had autism and fed into my pre existing issues. Have been feeling really angry and suicidal as I don’t want to loose my husband but my behaviour is pushing him away. Feel like I am beyond help.
***
Wow I’m glad I found this site. Sometimes, well always, I want to run from being a mother. I’d rather be at work than home with my daughter who is 9. I’m glad I didn’t have more children.

I have a loving husband, I have an extended family support system who live near by, I have a good job.

I regret most days that I became pregnant. I thought it was what I wanted. I’ve had and been through postpartum depression including hospitalization.

She is different to other kids, but they can’t find anything wrong. We’ve had assessment after assessment. She doesn’t do too well at school but at the same time is fairly bright. I have trouble understanding her, she is very strong willed, as I am too.

Some people ask why I have only one child, and I answer that’s all that was right for me. I don’t have any more love for another child, but the truth is I don’t have much love to give for this child.

I’m glad my daughter has others in her life that can provide her with the love that I can’t – Her dad, both her grandmothers, and aunts.

I’ve never told her or anyone else my true feelings. My father told me he wish he didn’t have me on more than one occasion which crushed me. Despite my feelings I never want her to know that I feel anything like that.

Thanks for listening. I’m glad to have this secret off my chest.
***
Wow, I’m not alone! I used to love being a mom. I have 4 girls and couldn’t have asked for a better life. However, 4 years ago, my 4 year old (2nd child) was diagnosed with terminal cancer and wasn’t expected to make it another 7 months. She proved everyone wrong and knocked the socks off the docs. She still is fighting and is going to attempt 1/2 days at school this week. However, this battle has been so hard on all of us. I feel so guilty to complain, but I regret bringing these children into this world to have to witness such pain and an unstable mom. So many people will tell me I am so strong, but the truth is I have only become numb. I refuse to allow myself to get close to anyone including my husband and children. I just couldn’t handle the pain of loss any longer and now I feel I have failed them of there needs. I am so angry I was chosen for this job and hate it everyday. I’m tired and deliberately sleep so I may dream of a different life. I want to run away, but know I would never forgive myself. Actually, I struggle with forgiving myself now for wishing I never had children. Being a mom, stuck behind closed doors, and shut off from the world is no picnic for anyone, whether you care for a child, the ill, or elderly. Eventually, it catches up with us all. Guess, we’ll continue to pray for better days, just wonder if I’ll ever see it here on earth.
***
I love my kids – I ache for them every time I snap at them, every time I neglect their needs, turn them away because I know they deserve so much more. But I am done. I cannot make myself volunteer for one more bake sale, eat lunch at the school, go to Mcdonalds or play outside when I hate being outdoors. I’m constantly being pulled in several different directions, especially with children of such varying ages, and after almost 17 years of being called “momma” I am desperate to rediscover who I used to be before being buried under the tons and tons of mommy debris. I have tons of regrets, but I already know that my biggest one at the end of my life will be not loving what I do. I told my husband it was like living in a Communist country – being forced to work at a job you hate for your entire life. There are no easy escapes – how can one abandon their children and not feel the weight of guilt everyday? How can one continue the mind numbing endless chores of motherhood and not want to run away? All I can do is accept this is the life I have – but accepting isn’t the same as enjoying and I can honestly say everyday I hate what I do without a ton of guilt (there is still some residual guilt). Because I, like most of the mothers here, am still doing it. Still wiping butts, still cleaning up spills, still reading, helping with homework. And I resent no one, I just ache for something more. I do know there are many women who would love the life that has been handed to me – but that doesn’t make me feel better because there are many women’s lives that I would love to have. At this point of my life, I’m ok with the fact that my kids are uninjured, sane, and loved. My house is a mess, chicken nuggets are a food group, and if my husband wants a perfect wife/mother, he more than welcome to go find one.
***
I constantly feel that if only someone had told me the truth, I would have spared myself and my husband this miserable life, and could have spared two beautiful children this disgusting world.
***
I think that, especially at a social event, parents and everyone else is going to be on their best behavior. I KNOW that some other moms I have personally talked to, shared struggles with, put on a happy mom face in public.

Also, I really do not want my kids to get hurt or sick at such a large event. I keep a watchful eye on what they are doing. And, I think kids are an easy, cop-out thing to talk about, without getting too personal…if that makes sense.

Out in “public”, people can act really different. No one wants to embarass themsleves.
***
I don’t know why, but it’s gotten worse these last few months…to the point where my misery is so encompassing it’s all I can think about. Sometimes the sadness weighs so heavily on me it’s physically challenging to do simple day to day things. It’s all I can do to get through my work day (I have a full time job) followed by picking the kids up at the sitters, feeding them dinner, giving them baths (my least favorite time of the day!! Ugh, bathtime = torture), going through the bedtime rituals and then, enjoying an hour to myself during which I eat junk food and watch crap TV before passing out on the couch and having to force myself to go upstairs to bed. Such quality me time.

I’ve always had suicidal thoughts, but it seems like more and more lately my suicidal fantasies take up so much of my time. One night last month I went home and put the kids to bed and thought, “tonight is the night.” And obviously I didn’t do it…but I was so consumed by my own depression that I couldn’t see going on another day. It’s the only thing I can think of doing that will put an end to my pain.
***
I empathize with every mother here who believed what the media portrayed and others told them about how amazing it was to be a mom. I too fell for it. I am now hating life and everything that comes with being a mom. I understand I became a mother for all the wrong reasons and I OWN my decision and the consequences. I will say that I have written off all those so called “friends” who made me feel like I was missing out on the best experience in life and how much I would regret not having kids. These were not my friends, these were miserable women who wanted miserable company. Not to say that every women is miserable, but I KNOW some of these so called “friends” defiantly lied. I feel these are the same women who sit on this site and say how the Childfree women on here are just trying to rub it in the rest of our faces and that they have other social issues/deformities and to get off the forum (just an FYI if you are socially incompetent you are socially incompetent regardless of your kid status). The women who say this crap are just jealous of the childfree’s lifestyle (I’m sure I’ll get some defensive mothers writing back to counteract that statement), but I understand you ladies aren’t here for that reason, you have people around you telling you how great it is and are on the fence about having a child and are just trying to see all sides of the spectrum. I understand and am here to tell you it isn’t as great as some of your friends and family are telling you. Of course it is up to you, but know that it is 100 times harder then what society makes it out to be.
***
For some biological reason I really really wanted a baby. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was the best parent before I had a child. My 6 year old sucks the life blood out of me. When I complain about her people look at me like I’m nuts – like we are all supposed to paste a smile on and pretend motherhood is the best thing on earth. I had a perfect baby, a nightmare toddler, and it’s only getting worse.
***
I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired of my sad life at home. It’s been 15 years of the same mess and I just can’t take it any more. Somehow over the years, I have managed to cope and change my attitude. But, why should I? As a mom, I’m cooking, cleaning, working, nursing, helping with homework, going to doctor’s visits and school visits and my husband seems to do nothing but just pay the bills. I have three kids, all stair step in age, 11, 12 and 14. The attitudes are killing me and my husband not setting ground rules or telling the kids the opposite of what I tell them to do is driving me nuts. The house is a total mess unless I clean it up and I am not doing it anymore. I hate coming home and I sometimes hate being around them. Sometimes, I just wish I could just be alone with none of this to contend with. It’s a constant battle every day with homework, chores and overall respect. I need some peace of mind.
***

Do keep in mind that these women made the wrong choice, insofar as they did not choose to abort, and they are paying the consequences of their moral failure. I am not on their side. Their children can also be devastated by being told that they were unwanted, and that is a burden imposed on them by these parents. I post these stories not out of sympathy, but so that the fact that many women do hate being mothers but are too afraid to “come out” can come to the forefront of this discussion and take its place as valuable evidence. Procreation is a trap used by the patriarchy to keep women in line.

Of course the pro-choice contingent is going to try to refute these stories by saying that they are not typical or that having children is still “worth it.” To which I would simply reply, how do you know? Even if you had children and never regretted it, your experience may not be typical. Because this is a taboo topic, we just can’t know except through personal testimonies such as these.

Furthermore, here are some female postpartum bodies. Click on the links if you wish to see them.

Anber
Amy
Tabitha
Triplet mom

Unless you go to The Shape of a Mother, you may never have seen the (sometimes horrific) consequences of pregnancy on a woman. You sure don’t see those advertised anywhere. They need to be seen by any woman who thinks of becoming pregnant. If the woman doesn’t find anything wrong with it, then that’s fine, but those who don’t want their bodies to become deformed in like manner will know the truth. This is much more important for “informed consent” than pictures of a dang fetus.

***

(click on image to see bigger)

From Childfreedom.

In this part, I am starting, and ending, the second half of the Q&A. This half is a lot weaker than the first half, so my answers here are a lot shorter. Some of these points have already been rehashed in previous questions, too. Pakulak really should have stopped at ten.

Question 11

There is another argument against abortion, analogous to an argument of Lincoln. Lincoln said, famously, that “as I would not be a slave; so I would not be a master”. He also remarked that, although he had heard many people defend slavery as a good thing, he had never yet met a man who wanted to become a slave himself. So we can ask: Does anyone wish that his mother had chosen abortion for him?

This is another area where my strong disagreements with pro-choice people entail a completely different answer than Pakaluk expects, thus defeating his strategy. As an antinatalist, I consider potential people to be better off than actual people. Starting a human life is a harm. Therefore, I believe that I would be better off if my life had not started.

This is not to say that I want to kill myself, an oft-repeated objection (see my entry on the topic). Obviously I now have vested interests in continuing to live. But the question here is not, would I kill myself (i.e. should my life be continued), but rather, should I, or any other fetus, have been aborted (i.e. should my life have not been started). Clearly the answer to such a question is yes.

Besides the fact that his expected answer is the wrong one in my case, Pakaluk’s argument is also invalid. It would be a valid argument if we were comparing two persons’ situations. We can validly demand that a slaveowner put himself in the situation of a slave, as they both have a similar form of consciousness and the same general capacities. But this is not what we are doing. Instead, Pakaluk demands that we compare the situation of an actual person (ourselves) with the situation of a potential person (the fetus). How can an actual person decide whether they’d want to be aborted if they were a fetus? We have no idea what it might be like to be a fetus, any more than we have any idea what it is like to be a bat or a snail. So the argument cannot even get off the ground.

Note also that Lincoln’s statement is a fine example of hypocrisy, given his actual opinions on slavery and his dismal track record on human rights.

Question 12

Developing the analogy with slavery, we might wonder how abortion is at all compatible with the idea that all human beings are equal. After all, it is inconsistent with equality that one person have his fundamental rights conferred upon him by someone else…

Similarly, as we saw, in our current practice of legal abortion, the unborn child has rights only if they are granted by the mother. For if the mother wishes to have an abortion, then the child has no rights, and its death is considered inconsequential; but if the mother wishes to continue her pregnancy, then an attack on the child is considered unlawful and even murderous. Hence the child–and presumably also the adult who grows from the child–has rights only because they have been originally granted by the mother. But this, as we have seen, is incompatible with the fundamental equality of all human beings.

Pakaluk’s question is contradictory. On one hand, he seems to agree with me that rights cannot be granted by any person or group, that the mother cannot grant a child rights any more than the State or God can. But then he speaks as if the actual act of abortion entailed that the mother grants or does not grant rights to the fetus, and that this is incompatible with the view that rights are not granted. But reality cannot contradict reality. If my reading of the question is the valid one, then the question is plainly incoherent and there is no way to answer it. Either Pakaluk is wrong when he says that rights cannot be granted, or he is wrong when he says that the mother actually has the power to grant rights to the fetus.

Now, my reading of the question may be the wrong one. Perhaps Pakaluk actually means, in his careless manner of writing, that the supposed granting or not granting of rights by the mother is a legal fiction or a delusion, that the act of abortion assumes that this granting of rights is actual, and that this disproves abortion. This reading is not obviously incoherent like the straightforward one, so I should be generous and answer this as well.

So the question becomes: does the fact that an act against some victim is legally allowed logically entail that the victim has no rights? Clearly the answer is no. Black slaves were obviously persons endowed with rights, as we know today, even though those rights were not recognized by the courts at that time. Likewise, innocent people shot by policemen without legal repercussions still clearly have rights, even legally, as proven by the fact that if they had been killed by anyone else, the courts would have found this to be within their jurisdiction. So there is no logical link between the act of abortion being legal and some kind of lack of rights.

The argument is not helped by introducing subjectivity, either. Suppose that, irritated by his homophobia, I punch Pakaluk in the face. I do not have to hold to the belief that Pakaluk doesn’t have a right not to be assaulted in order to punch him. Indeed, the fact that I would not be surprised or outraged at being arrested for punching him would tend to prove that I did indeed think that he had a right not to be assaulted. So there seems to be no logical connection here. I would be wiling to wager that most criminals do indeed recognize the rights of their victims, they just are not overly preoccupied by them, or have other reasons that they think override the rights.

This is also a useless argument, insofar as its basic premise, that fetuses have “fundamental rights” and that the right to life is included as one of those rights, remains unsupported. Why ask a question founded on an unproven premise?

I can see one obvious counter to my line of reasoning. Since I have stated that fetuses only have rights outside of the framework of abortion, then I must really believe that the woman grants rights by not aborting a baby, the legal aspect notwithstanding. With the abortion, the fetus has no rights; without the abortion, the fetus has rights. Surely, then, the woman’s decision is the determining factor in whether a fetus has rights or not, and this is the same thing as the woman granting or not granting those rights.

My response to this would be twofold. First, I would question the semantics of saying that a person who never existed could be granted or not granted anything. While we can attribute properties to non-existing persons, those properties are negative in nature (e.g. a potential person cannot feel pain, a potential person cannot be deprived, etc). “A potential person has the capacity to have rights or not have rights,” on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be a negative property, but rather a positive one.

Second, my position on fetuses’ rights does not infringe on the principle of equality, insofar as it maintains the principle that all persons are equals. Fetuses’ rights are an extension of that principle only insofar as the possibility of a future person implies rights in the present. But in the case of abortion, this possibility does not exist. I will discuss this argument further in the entry “The humbug of the fetal right to life…”

Of course, Pakaluk wants to reduce the issue again to the quality of being a “human being,” not the quality of being a “person,” but that rhetoric was refuted in question 9 and I don’t need to address it again.

Question 13

Developing the analogy with slavery even more, we can ask: Why isn’t legal abortion outright discrimination?…

By legal abortion, one class of human beings–born human beings–deny human rights and the protection of the law to another class of human beings–unborn children–because of a feature inessential to our humanity, viz. whether one is living inside or outside one’s mother’s womb. The difference between being unborn and being born seems just as accidental to a human being as the difference between having white and having black skin…

Again, this is basically the same question as question 9. We are again talking about “humanity” as the only acceptable standard, a humbug which I already refuted in my answer to question 9. So there is no point in repeating myself.

Question 14

[W]ouldn’t legal abortion be contrary to responsible principles of decision under uncertainty? If it were true that we “don’t know when human life begins,” it would follow, of course, that we don’t know that the fetus is not a living human being; that is, we don’t know that abortion is not morally equivalent to murder. But isn’t that precisely what we ought to know, before allowing abortion?

I agree with Pakaluk that uncertainty is not a valid argument for anything. Much like Christians who illogically use uncertainties about our knowledge to try to argue for God’s existence, using uncertainty to argue for abortion reflects a lack of logic. But furthermore, we do know when human life begins. Embryonic development is no secret. We know that consciousness arises in fetuses around 28 to 30 weeks, in a progressive manner.

But Pakaluk’s argument fails insofar as, even if a given act of abortion is murder, this does not mean that it is unjustified, for the reasons I discussed in my answer to question 1. The murder is ethically wrong, but so is starting a new life. Given that fact, we have to balance consequences, and on that basis I believe that abortion always comes up on top, or at least has a near-total advantage.

Question 15

In every abortion the fetus is cut into pieces, ripped or torn apart, or poisoned. No one would want to treat a small kitten or puppy in that manner, nor does the law allow to do so, so why should we allow anyone to treat immature human beings in that way? Imagine that, instead of paying money for an abortion, the price was to take a newly born puppy, the size of a peanut, and put it in a meat grinder. This an action quite comparable to what takes place in an abortion. How many people would pay that price? Then is it only the hidden character of abortion that makes it seem acceptable?

I don’t know what the point of this question is. Are we supposed to wrinkle our noses in disgust and say “ew”? Is that the entire argument here? Because I don’t know of anyone who would compare a kitten with a fetus. What is the comparison here? For one, a kitten or a puppy has vested interests in remaining alive. As far as I understand, a fetus does not have such interests.

Is it because they are both alive? Then we should be squeamish about killing or shredding plants as well, or insects, or fish. Why does the “ew” argument not come into play in those cases too? The answer is clear: Pakaluk used kittens and puppies as examples because they are cute animals. That’s the entire intellectual content of this question. So that’s a waste of time.

Question 16

Why is an abortion traumatic, but an appendectomy is not? If the fetus really is just a clump of tissue, why should there be any fuss about abortion? Indeed, if an abortion were in reality just like an appendectomy, how would it be possible for pro-life people to get others agitated about it? The very fact that there is a dispute at all about abortion seems to show that the pro-life view is correct and that abortions should not be performed.

I have already explained this phenomenon. Christianity is a faggot ideology, meaning that it is based on the active self-repression of homosexuality. This is proven by the fact that Christians constantly project their own flaws on their opponents, hate the body, sexuality, and female sexuality in particular, vehemently hate homosexuality, believe in salvation as their only recourse, and, of course, hate abortions. To the faggots (i.e. the self-repressed homosexual), children are proof of heterosexuality and normality, and their greatest tool of validation. Abortion is an attack against that tool.

The reason why Christian fanatics attack abortion and not appendectomies is because the appendix is not a faggot tool of validation, while babies are.

I understand that Pakaluk is expecting us to answer as if the Christian fanatics (a category in which he is included) are basically honest, and that therefore there must be a rational reason as to why abortion is under attack. But the fact is that there is no rational reason to be against abortion, and Christian fanatics have presented no such rational reason in their attacks. So I stick to my conclusion that they are re-enacting the neuroses written down by faggots.

Question 17

Why is it that doctors are allowed to do abortions? Even if abortions should be legal, shouldn’t they be performed by some other sort of agent? Just as we do not allow doctors to administer injections for capital punishment, shouldn’t we also bar doctors from doing abortions? The reason for this is that doctors should not engage in actions that are contrary to the aims of the practice of medicine, and these are to heal and relive (sic) pain.

Abortion is a surgery. Surgeries are performed by doctors. I don’t see what the issue is here. Abortion does “relieve pain.” In fact, it is the most pain-relieving procedure in existence. The more abortions that are performed, the less pain there will be in the world. And that’s a fact.

Abortion is a surgical operation, not a political issue. As the previous question implies when we answer it correctly, there’s no more reason for people to be politically against abortions than there are reasons for people to be politically against appendectomies, biopsies, or medically necessary amputations; a random person’s opinion (or Pakaluk’s, who as far as I know has never studied any medicine) on whether these are “contrary to the aims of the practice of medicine” is not evidence.

Question 18

Suppose a genetic marker for homosexuality is found, and a test is devised for this, and couples begin to abort fetuses with this marker. Should this practice be made illegal? If so, then why not sex-selection abortions also? And why not abortions for handicaps?

Again Pakaluk misses the mark, as his follow-up makes clear that he expects us to answer that such practices should be made illegal. But I have no such qualms.

I am pro-abortion. I support all abortions, for whatever reason. Every single abortion is a lessening of the potential harm on this planet, no matter what motives were used to come to that decision. Yes to abortions based on homosexuality, yes to abortions based on sex, yes to abortion based on handicaps, for every single abortion means one less life that will come to suffer.

This is the difference between people like me and people like Pakaluk. Pakaluk claims to care about suffering, but really doesn’t. His use of fetus pain is a misdirection so we don’t look at the enormous amounts of pain generated by natalism, his underlying ideology. It is really just a parlor trick. There is nothing substantial to Pakaluk’s position beyond his unwavering, fanatical adherence to natalism.

Question 19

And now, the last question:

Suppose the Supreme Court had decided in Roe v. Wade that the Constitution states that abortion must be illegal, that any law which allowed abortion was unconstitutional. What would your reaction have been? But the constitutional basis for a decision of that sort would have been just as strong as the constitutional basis for the actual holding of Roe., that any law which restricts or prohibits abortion is unconstitutional.

I suppose it’s fitting that we end on a question which is just as subjective as many of the other questions in the second half. Who cares what the Supreme Court decides? What bearing does people’s political agenda have on the facts? And what does the founding document of a country basically started in order to perpetrate genocide, a document which was engineered to separate 90% of the population from their rights, have to do with justice?

By any reasonable standard, the fact that the US Constitution has been judged as allowing abortion is a negative for abortion, not a positive. Likewise, if abortion had been outlawed, it should rightly be seen as a positive for abortion. My reaction to abortion being outlawed would have been sadness, anger, but also the bitter joy of having been proven right. Fittingly enough, my reaction to Pokaluk’s questions is exactly the same, minus the sadness.

Question 6

How should we regard a forced abortion of a pro-life woman’s fetus? This happens, of course, in China every day. It also happens occasionally in the United States–there have been several cases reported of husbands or boyfriends who in effect force a woman to have an abortion, either by coercing her to go to the clinic (these cases are perhaps not so rare), or by attacking her directly.
…
If the law concerning abortion should be designed so that “everyone can act in accordance with one’s own beliefs”, then presumably just as the law lets some people procure an abortion, because their beliefs allow it, so it should let the women in these cases, if they are pro-life, bring charges of murder, because their beliefs require it. So our view ought to be that, if a man were to force a pro- life woman to have an abortion, the man should be liable to prosecution for murder.

Again, this is a purely subjective argument, relying on beliefs to trump facts. Whether someone is pro-life or not has no relevance to evaluating an action as murder or not. The former is a belief and the latter is a fact. As an Anarchist, I am opposed to all laws, but if they are to exist, they should be held to the facts, not to beliefs about facts. So this question is a complete philosophical failure.

As such, I don’t know how Pakaluk leaps from “everyone can act in accordance with one’s own beliefs” to “one’s own beliefs determine the fact of whether an action is a crime or not.” Maybe this is a slippery slope argument and he’s trying to say that individualism inevitably leads to subjectivism. But if there is any evidence for that position, he does not provide it.

Question 7

It is often claimed that the right to an abortion is a part of the right to control one’s own reproductive life. But then it seems that the decision to abort should be made jointly, by both the father and mother. If we say that the mother alone can decide to have an abortion, then we ought equally to grant that the husband alone can decide that the pregnancy should end in abortion — at least he should be able to decide that he “aborts” the child, in the sense that he would have chosen abortion (if the woman had agreed), and so he has no responsibility to care for the child.

So it seems that either we grant the father an equal role in the abortion decision, or we must conclude that fathers cannot be held responsible for their offspring. If total responsibility for abortion rests with the mother, then total responsibility for birth should rest with her also. (This question points to the connection between the practice of abortion and paternal irresponsibility.)

Again Pakaluk commits the error of asking a question to which he thinks he knows the answer. He assumes that we will necessarily be against paternal irresponsibility, and that therefore this is a dilemma. But there’s no reason why we must be against paternal irresponsibility. The case he makes here is a logical case. If we accept it, then we must support paternal irresponsibility (personally I am against paternal irresponsibility on the whole, because I think children’s rights have primacy over “parental rights”).

So what? What does this have to do with the validity of abortion? Does he seriously think that people who reject paternal irresponsibility must therefore logically be against abortion? But that’s absurd. There are plenty of justifications for such a combination. At any rate, I do not have to defend it, because I am not held to any view regarding paternal irresponsibility, so the question does not apply to me at all.

In fact, I don’t want to talk about parenting at all, because it is an absurd institution. The idea that only one or two people should be entirely responsible and in near-total control of another human life because they had PIV is an open insult to rationality. Furthermore, reliance on one or two people is criminally dangerous (one being much more dangerous than two, but both being dangerous) because the livelihood of the child depends critically on the health, available time, wages and good will of only one or two people.

Question 8

Suppose a woman who wanted an abortion were first to observe her unborn child through ultrasound technology. In such images, the hands and feet of the child are typically discernible, and even within the first trimester, it is common to see the unborn child sucking his or her thumb. I ask the pro-choice person: why aren’t such images shown to woman, as part of informed consent preceding abortion?

You might respond that the images are not relevant, but how do you know whether they are relevant to her or not? I think, rather, your view is that such images are too relevant, that very few women who saw them would choose to have an abortion…

In general it is deceitful to withhold information from someone, if you know that, if you released it, the other person would act very differently.

Pakaluk here asks yet another question which is predicated upon subjectivity. How does the impact of the images on a woman’s views make it part of informed consent or not? Pakaluk has failed to present the case that it is. He has merely asserted that it is, based on some subjective criterion. So what? This is not an argument.

Pakaluk seems to believe that anything whatsoever that could influence a person’s decision-making process is part of informed consent. But this encompasses so many things that it is impossible to even imagine the scope of what informed consent would mean under Pakaluk’s laws. The woman’s entire genetic profile as well as her partner’s, with full explanations and images for every single gene, the personality of the doctor, testimonies from people who have had successful abortions and did or did not regret it, what her parents and friends think about abortion, all the different kinds of harm that could come about to the future person, with images and video testimonies from all sorts of people who have gone through them, all of these things may profoundly influence a person’s decision-making process as regards to having an abortion. So why not mandate these by law, too? Why not mandate omniscience to the people whose job it is to provide this “informed consent”? Because that’s what you’ll need when you’re done.

West’s Encyclopedia of American Law defines informed consent as:

Assent to permit an occurrence, such as surgery, that is based on a complete disclosure of facts needed to make the decision intelligently, such as knowledge of the risks entailed or alternatives.

The name for a fundamental principle of law that a physician has a duty to reveal what a reasonably prudent physician in the medical community employing reasonable care would reveal to a patient as to whatever reasonably foreseeable risks of harm might result from a proposed course of treatment. This disclosure must be afforded so that a patient—exercising ordinary care for his or her own welfare and confronted with a choice of undergoing the proposed treatment, alternative treatment, or none at all—can intelligently exercise judgment by reasonably balancing the probable risks against the probable benefits.

What part of this has anything to do with seeing an ultrasound of your fetus? Pakaluk can’t make any argument about it, so you tell me…

Question 9

If you think abortion should be allowed, can you consistently maintain that there any human rights at all? Human rights are presumably rights that belong to us in virtue of our being human–that is why they are called “human” rights. They are prior to decision or convention, precisely because they depend upon our nature. We have them simply because we are human beings, not because of an acquired characteristic or accomplishment. But if the fetus has no rights, then there are no human rights, because the fetus is clearly a human being, and if there were rights that followed from simply being human, the fetus would have them.

And yet, at least in our society, this is clearly false, because the standard argument for jailing people is that they “surrender their rights” by committing a crime. It is absolute nonsense, as I’ve argued before, but if Pakaluk accepts throwing people in jail (to be fair, I do not know if he does or not, although he is a Christian and anti-abortion, so it seems safe to assume that he is a right-winger like most Americans), he must accept that rights are not innate.

It is also equally obvious, again in our society, that children have very few rights. Same goes for workers and work contracts. Since they are all human, why don’t they have the same rights as everyone else? Again, if Pakaluk accepts the common view, then his argument makes no sense.

Now that my first point is made, let me put it aside, since it is all based on assumptions, and continue to a more important point. From my perspective, rights are a construct that we use to make sense of the issue of which actions are justifiable and which are not. If person A punches person B, and person B punches person A in response, which action is justifiable and which isn’t? This is what rights are about. It doesn’t make sense to talk about the rights of a being that can’t act, that doesn’t participate in the greater society, such as a person in a coma, a fetus, or a person living in another distinct society. This is not to say that we should treat such beings badly (obviously we are bound to follow all other ethical rules regardless), but simply that they are not included within the framework of rights.

Now, as I have addressed when I talked about the Non-Identity Problem, it makes sense to speak of a fetus embodying rights, despite the fact that a fetus does not participate in society, as long as that fetus will develop into a human being that does have rights. We can say meaningfully that a pregnant woman who takes cocaine is attacking someone’s rights, even if that person is a future person. But abortion clearly is not part of this category. Since by definition an aborted fetus will not develop into a rights-bearing person, it does not embody any rights. So rights never enter the picture.

Question 10

This is the question where Pakaluk really starts going off the deep end and starts comparing abortion with slavery.

“It is for women to decide … the moral and religious right of the abortion question for themselves within their own limits…. I repeat that the principle is the right of each woman to decide this abortion question for herself, to have an abortion or not, as she chooses, and it does not become a pro-lifer, or anybody else, to tell the her she has no conscience, that she is living in a state of iniquity… We have enough objects of charity at home, and it is our duty to take care of our own poor, and our own suffering, before we go abroad to intermeddle with other people’s business.”

I arrived at that quotation by taking one of Stephen Douglas’s defenses of slavery, and substituting “abortion” for “slavery”; “woman” for “state”; and “a pro-lifer” for “Mr. Lincoln.”

Again, same answer I’ve given before: what people believe or decide has nothing to do with the reality of the action itself. So this is not an adequate defense of abortion or of any other position. It is, at best, a defense of tolerating abortion (or in the original text, slavery).

But here the anti-abortionist has it all backwards, as is usual for Christians when they try to dip their toe into ethical waters. Slavery is an imposition of harm. Starting new lives is also an imposition of harm. Abortion means ending a possible imposition of harm. Therefore the analogy, at a basic level, should be between slavery and anti-abortionism, not between slavery and abortion. Furthermore, I have discussed in the past how natalism (the ideology that drives anti-abortionism) and slavery are connected. Both are about treating human beings as means to an end, as objectified tools, instead of treating them as human beings.

The argument Pakaluk uses in his analogy is basically a voluntaryist argument (although voluntaryists would recoil at the implications, mainly because they are ideological hypocrites). Voluntaryism is invalid. But since the pro-abortion case does not rely on voluntaryism, the accusation is irrelevant.

Does it raise in your mind any suspicions at all that you might just be on the wrong side?

What, because a comparison has been made between a purely subjectivist defense of slavery and a purely subjectivist defense of abortion? Why? You can use that tactic to compare slavery to any other logically voluntaryist position. So what? Voluntaryism is still bunk.

Go to part 3.

This is about a list of 20 questions for pro-choice people (there are actually only 19, as far as I can tell). It was written for the Augustine Club, a group of vehement anti-abortion Christian students. To provide some background for these entries, the questions were written by Michael Pakaluk, a philosophy professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, a fundamentalist Catholic organization, and also a known homophobe.

Unlike most anti-abortion rhetoric, the questions are articulate and detailed, with followups to the answers they expect pro-choice people to give. I think my pro-abortion position sidesteps many of these followups; besides, I find every pro-choice argument to be specious at best, so I’m definitely not going to defend those. I am as opposed to the pro-choice position as I am to the anti-abortion position. Either way, I am interested in going through these questions.

Incidentally, this list was my original inspiration for this series, so if you want to blame someone, blame him.

Question 1

I assume that you think that we human beings have human rights. Your position, in fact, is that among the rights a human being has is the right to control one’s reproduction. Well, at what point do you think that a human being, with human rights, comes into existence? Is it at birth, or earlier?

As a pro-abortion person, I do not believe we have “the right to control one’s reproduction.” I don’t believe in “reproductive rights.” They are more pseudo-rights, legal fictions. The entry “The humbug of “reproductive rights”…” will be a logical refutation of “reproductive rights” and the proposal of an alternative rights framework for procreation.

That being said, fetuses start to be conscious at 28 to 30 weeks of gestation, and this is when people come into existence in a moral sense (for a longer discussion of this, see Better Never to Have Been, chapter 5).

Whatever answer you give– viability, brain waves, whatever–Why don’t you oppose abortion after this time?… “[W]hy do you do nothing to stop those human beings with human rights–as you have concede–from being killed”?

The number of abortions that take place after 28 weeks is insignificant, especially since abortions after 20 to 24 weeks become illegal pretty much everywhere, unless there is a strong medical reason to abort. There’s no point in me opposing such abortions, as they are already opposed by pretty much the entire Western world. So the question is actually moot. But I will continue answering anyway, because there is an important point behind this question, even if it is obscured by the clumzy wording.

We know for a fact that starting a new human life creates harm, and we have a duty not to create harm. Obviously this also includes not killing persons, but personhood is not an all-or-nothing proposition. The 28 to 30 weeks figure is the minimal point at which we can say that a consciousness exists, but personhood will continue to develop all the way through childhood.

Now, I have argued that we have a duty to abort unless proven otherwise. So this situation should not occur, as all fetuses should in principle be aborted as soon as their existence is known. ethically speaking (I know that most people are not pro-abortion and will not agree, which is why I state that I am talking about ethical facts). Then, what we have, if the abortion is not performed in time, is a dilemma between two forms of harm:

(1) The harm of killing the new person.
(2) The harm that will be created by continuing this new life into full personhood.

We can further subdivide each into two categories:

(1a) The harm of killing the new person, to the new person.
(1b) The harm of killing the new person, to the woman.

(2a) The harm that will be created by continuing this new life into full personhood, to the new person.
(2b) The harm that will be created by continuing this new life into full personhood, to the woman.

Both killing the potential person and starting its life are crimes and both are wrong. As for any other situation where two valid principles clash, we have to look at the consequences.

What is the consequence of killing the new person? For the fetus, absolutely nothing, as fetuses are incapable of subjectively experiencing pain. The harm (1a) is therefore zero. Some potential parents may experience distress, a great deal of which is consciously inflicted by anti-abortion advocates, while others experience relief. Interestingly, according to a Danish study done on 350,000 women (Induced First-Trimester Abortion and Risk of Mental Disorder, NEJM 2011), women who give birth are tremendously more at risk of psychiatric problems (72% rise in cases) than woman who get abortions (4% rise in cases). So one may argue that in fact the “harm” (1b) of killing the new person to the woman is much smaller than the harm (2b) to the woman entailed by childbirth.

The harm (2a) of continuing the new life, on the other hand, can be dramatic (death at birth from deformities, mental retardation, heart defects, progeria, spina bifida, child leukemia, child AIDS, muscular dystrophy, and so on all the way through old age), or it can be relatively mild (a “normal” healthy and “successful” life).

So which is better? Personally, if I compare both situations, I have to believe that the zero harm (1a) a fetus goes through when it gets murdered is always smaller than any amount of harm (2a) that a potential person will experience during eir life, and the small risk of harm (1b) the woman goes through compared to the tremendous risk of harm (2b) to women who give birth. Zero is smaller than a positive number, and a smaller number is smaller than a greater number; to me that seems like just simple logic.

Even if I assumed that (1a) is greater than zero, an assumption which is not backed by any scientific evidence, I would still definitely prefer the harm inflicted by abortion, which is short and inflicted on a being that can barely feel pain, to the wide variety of harms, many of which are horrible, inflicted on actual persons who feel pain fully. And I think that, comparing both sides, most people would also have the same preference, especially if you put it in a different context. Even a person living a privileged life in the Western world still goes through an amount of harm which I judge vastly greater than that of a fetus being aborted. So to me, abortion always wins out.

Note here that I am not making a utilitarian comparison. I am not literally comparing the amount of harm each goes through, because that’s logically impossible. All I am doing is saying which one I would prefer to see, taking into account all the factors of both cases. If anyone disagrees, I would seriously question whether they are telling the truth, insofar as most people are by far more distressed when a loved one suffers than by a loved one’s miscarriage (of course, there are always exceptions). It doesn’t really make psychological sense for anyone to want to see more actual persons suffer so fetuses may not suffer.

Again, I am not saying that the late abortion is not a murder. But given that in both cases one necessarily inflicts harm, which is criminal, we have to go to the side we judge preferable and that we judge inflicts less harm on the whole, and to me that’s clearly the pro-abortion side.

So my answer would be: I don’t actively try to stop these murders because 1. they are already being stopped and 2. the alternate crime, which is a necessary result of rejecting the murder, is consequentially worse than the murder.

Before I continue to question 2, I first want to evacuate the possible objection that, if murder must be balanced with the coming harm to the person, I must therefore be in favor of forced euthanasia even when the person is conscious and able to state a desire not to die.

I have two rejoinders to this. The first is that clearly consent is a key issue, as without consent an action or system cannot be justifiable. But such an objection has it completely backwards: in the case of a fetus, the criterion of consent is clearly on the side of abortion. Surely a fetus cannot consent to be born and bear the burden of the various harms that living beings go through. In the absence of the possibility of consent to these harms, the only justifiable decision is to abort. The absence of consent is not relevant to abortion, since abortion merely ensures that the non-existing person will remain non-existing. So far as the issue of consent goes, forced euthanasia is analogous to giving birth, not to third-trimester abortion.

My second point is the issue of responsibility. The pregnant woman is personally responsible for all the harm that may enter the life she wishes to start. She is therefore obliged to do the right thing and prevent that harm. In the euthanasia example, the harm of starting a life has already been done, the crime has already been perpetrated, and killing the person will not change that fact. Nothing can change the fact that an existing person exists; death brings an end to that existence, but it does not erase it. Because of that, abortion is justifiable but forced euthanasia isn’t, because the former is concerned with potential people while the latter is concerned with actual people.

Question 2

Pro-choice people argue that the lack of consensus about when life begins implies that abortion should be legal until birth. By why only until birth? Why not after birth–that is, why do we not allow infanticide? My concern is: what keeps us from legalizing infanticide? Is it only because there happens to be a consensus that infants are human beings with human rights? But what if that consensus should change? And it is not naive to suppose it might change.

Especially in the follow up, Pakaluk tries to make this about consensus, by which he really means “popular opinion.” There’s nothing about consensus in his reasoning at all. And my argument has nothing to do with popularity. It’s about facts. Actions are not right or wrong because people agree, any more than propositions become true or false because people agree or disagree with you. Most people would disagree that there is no god, and yet there is no god. Most people would disagree that hierarchies are wrong, but hierarchies are wrong.

Popularity has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with what beliefs institutions in our society, especially the power elite, rely upon in order to survive and retain people’s participation and support. Ultimately it is about indoctrination. The anti-abortion position has always had the indoctrination machine behind it, pushing the “wonders” of procreation, giving special status to married people and people with children, slandering women who get abortions, pushing procreation as the number one economic solution, and so on. That’s why the anti-abortion position has sustained itself despite the miserable failures of Christianity.

So because of that, I am not going to address his follow up, because it doesn’t apply to my arguments. That issue put aside, my answer to the main question here would be a continuation of my answer to question 1. Personhood develops throughout the months and years of one’s existence. Our vested interests in continuing to exist do not spring from whole cloth, and are also developed during a large period of time. The harm of continuing the life, however, remains constant. Obviously the equation balances out eventually, but there’s no clear reason why we should say that a fully grown fetus can be killed but not a baby.

Some may argue that the fetus depends on the mother’s body and the baby does not. The pro-choice people have no choice (pun intended) but to hammer on the concept of dependence as their way to escape the infanticide dilemma, as in this example:

It’s actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other – and thus they don’t have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a “right to life” to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother’s right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another’s right to control her body.

The argument fails because there’s no meaningful difference between the two scenarios. The potential person only “cancels out” the woman’s rights insofar as its needs interfere with the woman’s needs; but the same thing is true after birth. Only by ignoring the great impact that having a child has on women’s lives could prompt someone to make the absurd claim that ey “causes no intereference” with the mother’s rights while the fetus did. The premise also seems questionable: to give another example of “two entities with equal rights occupying one body,” saying that conjoined twins are committing a crime against each other because they are “automatically cancel[ling] out” the other’s rights is counterintuitive.

The belief in dependence as a criteron is easily refuted by looking at the example of people in comas. Even though a person in a coma depends on machines to survive, this alone is not presented as a justification to allow killing em, and, I think, rightly so. Rather, we are only willing to “let go,” to disconnect them, when we know there is no personhood left in the body being sustained. This is the only fair standard. Without any person in the body, it is just a piece of meat, devoid of any ethical relevance.

I fully realize that there is an implicit argument from self-ownership in this pro-choice quote, through the narrative that the fetus and the woman are somehow locked in an “ownership” battle in which there can only be one victor; the body of the woman can be “owned” only by the fetus or by the woman. This narrative is used to try to draw a divide between the pre-birth and post-birth situations. I have already soundly refuted the concept of self-ownership many times on this blog, so I don’t need to examine this issue further except to say that it is irrational. At any rate, the whole issue of body ownership will be examined in detail in my entry “Body ownership: the fetus is a lousy tenant…”, where I conclusively refute this argument.

Continuing on the delightful topic of infanticide, Pakaluk dismissively mentions people who argue for the infanticide of Downs Syndrome children. Why mention it dismissively? Probably because Pakaluk knows that he can’t counter that example. Otherwise, why just bring it up without refuting it and putting that whole side argument to rest?

The elephant in the room is the fact that Pakaluk clearly expects us to be against infanticide, and by extension he clearly expects us to be against the example of infanticide of Downs Syndrome children. Yet he refuses to tell us why we should be adamantly against it in all cases. And if we suppose that the infanticide of Downs Syndrome children is justified by the harm spared (a position which I see no reason to reject out of hand), then we can make the exact same argument for all other forms of infanticide as well.

Just to make this clear, so no one jumps to conclusion, I am not arguing here that infanticide is necessarily justifed (although I do believe it can be, but that is beyond the scope of this entry). I am, however, saying that Pakaluk has failed to demonstrate that it isn’t; he merely assumes this, and his whole argument relies on that assumption. In the absence of further evidence, his argument fails.

Question 3

But in general, why does any position, rather than any other, follow from a lack of consensus? Suppose someone were to argue as follows: “There is a lack of consensus about when human life begins; therefore, abortion should be prohibited throughout pregnancy.” Why is this argument any more, or less, reasonable than the argument that:”There is a lack of consensus about when human life begins; therefore, abortion should be allowed throughout pregnancy?”

This question concerns popular opinion, so it is of no relevance to my position, which denies popular opinion as a valid epistemology. My answer is that nothing follows from a “lack of consensus.” To argue otherwise is a red herring, an attempt to divert the topic with irrelevant facts. The fact that people disagree about a topic does not prove that any position on that topic is correct.

Furthermore, the issue of “human life” is also irrelevant in itself, since all the parties to this debate agree that the fetus is a form of “human life,” in the same way that a cancer tumor is “human life” or that any cell in one’s body is “human life.” This is a useless path of argumentation.

Question 4

You hold that women should be free to choose what they think is right regarding abortion: if a woman’s conscience tells her that abortion is in her case permissible, then she should be free to choose to have an abortion. This position has plausibility, because it seems to show respect for the woman’s conscience. But I wonder whether this is just an appearance. What do you think about cases where the woman’s conscience tells her that abortion is not a good thing–because she thinks she is killing her baby–but she wants an abortion anyway. Why should these abortions be allowed?

This is a complete philosophical confusion on Pakaluk’s part. He is arguing that people may commit actions which are contrary to their values. But this is logically impossible, as by definition our values are what we act upon. The real-life examples he gives do not make his point, as they demonstrate that the women in question do hold that the abortion process has value for them:

“The new baby would interfere with everything. We want to move to the West Coast, for example. We were convinced that the abortion was the best thing rather than the right thing.”

“I love my husband. I just think it would be better for him if I have the abortion. I’ll get over it.”

Palaluk may object to my analysis on the basis that a woman shouldn’t care what her husband wants. But this would be a strange position for a fanatic Christian conservative to take, to say the least.

And again, this is an argument from subjectivity, hardly what you expect to hear from a serious philosopher. What relevance does the woman’s opinion about abortion has to the issue of whether abortion is justified or not? Should we accept a person’s opinion that rape is justifiable and not condemn him for committing rape? Should we accept a parent’s testimony that he no longer regrets physically assaulting his child as proof that physical assault against children is justified? Should we accept hatred of, and discrimination against, certain “races” as proof that those “races” are inferior? People’s capacity for self-delusion about their own actions is endless.

Yes, people must follow their own conscience. And women who have abortions do so because of what their conscience dictates. But in no way should we make conscience trump over facts. For example, I may feel bad about ostracizing a sociopath, but my conscience does not trump the fact that ey is a sociopath. Some women may have remorse about having had an abortion, but that does not prove anything about abortion per se. More evidence is needed, and Pakaluk does not provide any.

Question 5

Pro-choice people claim that the current law about abortion in our country–or perhaps we should say the absence of law–allows everyone to follow his or her own conscience: people who are pro-choice can procure abortions, if they wish; and people who are pro-life are free not to have an abortion, if they wish… But are pro-life people in fact allowed to act in accordance with their convictions? Did Roe v. Wade merely open up a space for a view that had no standing before–the view that abortion is in some circumstances permissible–or did it completely replace one view, the pro-life view, with some other view opposed to it–so that pro-life people could complain, with justice, that some alien and unjustified view has been imposed upon them?
…
[I]t is false to say that, in our society, pro-life people are free to live in accordance with their conviction that unborn children are precious and have dignity. The reason for this is that, if I believe that another human being has dignity, then that belief implies that I help him and save him from harm. But people who believe that unborn children are precious and have dignity are forbidden to act this way on their behalf.

This is a bizarre argument to say the least, and is very much similar to the argument used against antinatalists that we’re trying to coerce people into antinatalism, whatever that means. The underlying argument here is that it is wrong for people to be unable to express their ideology into action, that this means that they are not free to live in accordance with their conviction.

My answer to this is: yes, an alien view has been imposed upon them, and thank Bob! We can no longer afford to live in a society where abortion is illegal, with all the misery and crime, and ultimately massive quantities of harm, that this brings about. Anyone who thinks we should return to such a world is delusional.

I no more want anti-abortion people to be able to express their convictions than I want pro-rape or pro-racism people to be able to express their convictions, because their convictions are criminal. That’s really all there is to say about it. People who wish to support the creation of harm are disgusting and twisted, and should be treated the same way we treat neo-nazis.

My upcoming entry “Defining tyranny within the abortion issue.” will deal with this issue in more detail.

Go to part 2.

My point, instead, is to make an observation about the above set of facts, which I’ll call “the human condition,” in the pessimistic sense. My observation is this: while all of the above facts can be considered an insult or injury, there is one more that goes largely unnoticed. The final insult is that we are not supposed to talk about the human condition. Indeed, we are not even supposed to acknowledge its existence. I call this last insult the “Meta-Human Condition”—the salt in the wound.
…
Now consider the hard question. Suppose you know that, in this alternative world, everyone dies. There are no life rafts. When you tell people about the iceberg, they don’t believe you. “Hit an iceberg? You have quite an imagination, young man. Please. Have a cigar and sip some cognac. This ship has a fine captain. He is in perfect control and will keep us safe.”

Do you persist in trying to convince them of the horror of the situation? Or do you take the cigar and cognac, dance with a beautiful woman, and sing a grand old song, at least for another hour or two?

I would still want to tell them. But maybe I’m just mean.

No, I don’t think it’s mean to tell people the truth.

(image modified from a wrongcards)

You will sometimes hear a talking head from some organization or clinic saying something like “well, no one is for abortion,” and trying to portray the “reasonable” position that abortion is undesirable, terrible, but that it’s a “necessary evil.” Even if they won’t say the words “necessary evil,” it always seems to be in the back of their minds, or at least the belief that it’s a “necessary undesirable.”

Here’s the question though, why is abortion undesirable and terrible? It is a surgical operation, and like all surgical operations, it carries with it some risk. In fact, abortions are amongst the safest surgical operations that can be performed. It also generates some amount of traumatism for the patient, but so do all surgical operations.

As for any other surgical operation, we accept the risk and traumatism, however big or small it is, because the operation brings about some greater good desired by the patient. The greater the good, the more risk and traumatism we are ready to accept. It’s really that simple. And abortion, while not usually a matter of life or death, does bring about a tremendous good: not having to bring to term a new life which will occupy the next twenty years of one’s life, not starting a new human life which will be the victim of harm and suffering. That’s a great benefit.

One may reply that abortion is like any other operation, that we don’t think the operation itself is a benefit, and that we would rather have the benefit without the operation. Following this logic, it is better to not be pregnant at all than to have to have an abortion. But I think that is the wrong way of looking at the situation (especially since some pregnancies are inevitable, as long as people will have PIV). We should rather ask, all other things being equal, is it better for abortion to be made more available or less available? Is it better for more abortions to be performed, or less abortions? Clearly it is better for there to be more abortions. I would rather have an abortion clinic in every neighborhood than daycare centers.

We absolutely do need abortions to be widespread. Even the most effective contraception methods used in a perfect manner (I am excluding surgical operations like vasectomies here) still yield a 2-6% unintended pregnancy rate per year. This means that over a period of five years, you have an average from 10% to 27% probability of experiencing an unintended pregnancy, again if the contraceptive is used in a perfect manner. Typical (non-perfect) condom use see a 56% probability of unintended pregnancy over five years. This is a gigantic risk to take without abortions being widely available to all. Even vasectomies, done perfectly, yield a 0.5% accidental pregnancies rate over five years, which means that for every thousand men who get perfect vasectomies, five will end up starting a pregnancy. This should be a scary scenario for anyone.

Even though she is pro-childbirth, which is ridiculous, Jill of Feministe (a funfem blog, not a radical feminist blog) understands why abortion is good in itself:

Abortion itself, though, can be a savior for women, and a positive choice. Abortion is a medical procedure and, like most medical procedures, is preempted by some sort of negative event. And yet the discourse around abortion is focused on how “tragic” it is. Is open-heart surgery “tragic”? Is an appendectomy “tragic”? Obviously the circumstances leading up to open-heart surgery and appendectomy are bad. But the procedures themselves, I would argue, are good responses to bad situations. As is abortion.

My real topic in this entry is not abortion but gatekeepers. The pro-choice spokespeople just happen to be a good example of what gatekeepers do. Their objective is to become part and parcel of a system which makes childbirth the default and abortion an aberration. Like everyone who seeks to integrate emselves within the dominant paradigm, they have to not only conform to the expectations of the public but also to suppress anyone who is on their side but fails to conform to those expectations as well.

This is the role of the gatekeeper, to keep “undesirable” elements out of a movement or ideology and ensure that only ideas and soundbites that are compatible with the goal of public relations are allowed in public discourse. Like all attempts at integrating within political discourse, their decisions are made on the basis of pragmatism, not about truth. Saying that abortion is positive has no political benefit and plenty of political downsides, so it must be suppressed. Even though they know it is the truth, and they know they are lying, they must keep pretending that the position doesn’t exist and is a straw man; to admit the opposite would open them to further accusations and would be pragmatically counter-productive.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
(to which I would add: same for women, too)

Gatekeepers can be all sorts of people or organizations. Some include unions, political parties, interest groups, academics, self-styled activist elites, and basically anyone who plots at organizing any field that has any possibility of activism. Anyone who sniffs power for themselves may take on traits of gatekeepers (such as older atheists who try to stop younger atheists from expressing how much they hate religion).

The avowed aim of gatekeepers is to gain support from the public and from the power elite (especially politicians). Any form of radical activism necessarily goes counter to that intent, because it goes against the interest of the power elite and of the segments of the population that support it. Therefore it is always in their interest to suppress or co-opt radical activism. They become the equivalent of slave overseers, people who are part of the same “group” but whose job it is to keep everyone else in the “group” subservient.

The end result is that gatekeepers are part of the emergence of a movement but paradoxically keep a movement from growing, because they channel people’s energies into fruitless political pursuits and suppress creativity in the name of that channeling.

The saddest part is that some gatekeepers (not all, by far, but some) are good-intentioned and really truly believe that they are doing what’s best for their community or ideological group. They believe that some “tough love” is necessary to align “rebels” in their group with the “proper behaviour” necessary to mimic in order to be successful in the “marketplace of ideas” (hi db0!).

It can be hard to argue against such blindingly naive honesty. The best course of action, I think, is to ignore these self-appointed leaders and speak your mind, even if that means ostracism. Likewise, if anyone ever tries to establish themselves as leaders of any pro-abortion movement in the future, I will blithely tell them to fuck off.

Introduction to the pro-abortion position. (this entry)
“No one is for abortion!” (01/09)
Anti-Abortion Q&A [part 1] (01/15), [part 2] (01/17), [part 3] (01/19)
Secret Confessions: How great is it to have a child? (01/25)
Can one be an anti-abortion atheist? (02/01)
The humbug of “reproductive rights”… (02/07)
The humbug of the fetal right to life… (02/13)
Body ownership is semantic gobbledygook. (02/19)
Do women have a right to make medical decisions on abortion? (02/25)
Is abortion murder?: a comedy of errors. [part 1] (03/01), [part 2] (03/03)
Pro-choice and anti-abortion: what they have in common. (03/09)
Choice-talk, if taken literally, is invalid. [part 1] (03/15), [part 2] (03/17)
Defining tyranny within the abortion issue. [part 1] (03/23), [part 2] (03/25)
The Prime Directive is not just for show… (04/01)
Why be pro-abortion? [part 1] (04/07), [part 2] (04/13)
“Childbirth is our purpose!” (04/19)
Abortion: the endgame. [part 1] (04/25), [part 2] (04/27)

Epilogue:
Abortion is only one part of the problem: so is PIV. (05/03)
[and possibly, after this, replies to other people's criticism, if any is published on other blogs]

(before you complain, I did not coerce any children to wear this: it’s a virtual model from Zazzle. You may buy this, or any other design I made, at my antinatalism Zazzle store)

Antinatalism sheds a unique light on the issue of abortion. It provides the basis for the only consistent position on abortion, the pro-abortion position. Some people who are both concerned with personal freedom and with social well-being become disillusioned with the pro-choice arguments but do not know of the alternative. For this reason, I think it needs to be discussed in detail, and a series of entries, starting with this introduction, will be published addressing various facets of the abortion issue as seen from a developed pro-abortion perspective.

The pro-abortion position can be described most simply as the position that, for any given pregnancy, abortion should be the default (and, by extension, that childbirth should be the exception). This position can be derived in a number of ways, but, as far as I know, the best way to derive it has been from antinatalism, which, in all its forms, implies the duty to abort. If antinatalism is correct and it is wrong to start new lives, then pregnant women have a duty to abort. Of course, this may be false in specific cases if a more important or pressing ethical imperative presents itself, but that goes without saying for any ethical principle.

That being said, there are many reasons why a person might be, or become, pro-abortion. An obvious one (and one which I have observed) is disappointment with the pro-choice corollary that parents can choose to start defective human lives. Another might be opposition to an evil social order (as every human life born in the West entails more economic subjection of people in the Second and Third World). Another is being a Buddhist (if you believe that every part of life is permeated with suffering, then you have a strong reason not to produce new lives). There may also be many other reasons I am not aware of.

The anti-abortion¹ position is, as you can imagine, pretty much the opposite of the pro-abortion position. The simplest way to define it is to say that for any given pregnancy, childbirth should be the default (and, by extension, that abortion should be the exception, although some anti-abortion people believe there are no such exceptions).

The pro-choice position is that the default should be freedom for the woman to choose between childbirth and abortion (again, with some exceptions). It can be said to be a middle ground in the sense that a person may be somewhere between anti-abortion and pro-choice (refusing abortion for more conditions, such as demanding earlier time limits), or between pro-choice and pro-abortion (demanding abortion for more conditions, such as the level of expected debilitation of the future child); however, it is not a middle ground in terms of justification.

What I mean by this is that, while the anti-abortion position argues that abortion is criminal, and the pro-abortion position argues that childbirth is criminal, the pro-choice position is not a balance of these two considerations. In fact, the pro-choice position doesn’t partake of either of them at all, or if it does, only as an exception. Rather, the pro-choice position argues on what may be called voluntaryist grounds: the woman “owns her body” (a nonsensical concept) and as such has the “reproductive right” (another nonsensical concept) to decide whether to abort or give birth.

So the pro-choice position is closer to an agnostic position, with anti-abortion being like theism (pro-imposition of harm) and pro-abortion being like atheism (anti-imposition of harm). The agnostic doesn’t claim knowledge about the existence of gods, and the pro-choice advocate doesn’t claim knowledge about what is right or wrong in abortion matters (except, of course, that anyone who makes claims about right or wrong in abortion matters is automatically wrong). The pro-choice advocate doesn’t take sides on ethics, but only puts forward the concept of choice.

My analogy does break down. Unlike the theist-agnostic-atheist concepts, where an atheist can be agnostic or not, and a theist can be agnostic or not, you can’t be pro-choice and anti-abortion, or pro-choice and pro-abortion. The three positions exclude each other.

My pro-abortion position is both opposed to the pro-choice position and to the anti-abortion position. This will be no surprise to the anti-abortion advocates, as I have made no secret of being against Christianity and its ethics (not that the Bible is on their side about abortion), but some pro-choice advocates will no doubt berate me for attacking their arguments during this series, and argue that I am really one of them; but this would be a complete misunderstanding. As I think my entries will prove, the pro-choice arguments are as fallacious as the anti-abortion arguments. The pro-choice and the anti-abortion positions are both frankly ridiculous and make no sense.

Finally, I want to clarify some potential misconceptions before they come up. The pro-abortion position is not an outgrowth of the pro-choice position, neither does it share any of its premises or arguments, so addressing pro-choice arguments is not a refutation of the pro-abortion position. The pro-choice movement may have helped structure the acceptance of abortion, but it is no longer necessary.

The pro-abortion position is also not related to the childfreedom movement. Childfreedom advocates can be anti-abortion, pro-choice or pro-abortion; there’s no correlation between not wanting children and being for or against abortion.

Another objection to this whole enterprise is that, as a man, I have no business interfering in abortion policies, which concern only women. I would agree if we were only talking about abortion, but since new children do affect society as a whole in many profound ways and puts economic and social demands on everyone, including men (and no, I am not talking about alimony or anything like that), policies which allow or demand childbirth most definitely concern everyone.

By attacking the pro-choice position, I make myself the enemy of (non-radical, fun-fem) feminists, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that I have no right to say it based on being categorized male. My primary objective is to destroy logical fallacies, not tell women what to do; the policy issues are mainly a consequence of the bad logic, not vice-versa. I think it is everyone’s business, not just women’s business, to attack logical fallacies, especially when they are used as arguments to justify policies. If I am telling people what to do, it is primarily telling people to stop using absurdly fallacious arguments to argue their position.

I hope you enjoy this series. In the meantime, also check out Sister Y’s entry Five Reasons to Have an Abortion.

…
¹ This is a note on the label “anti-abortion.” I will not dignify the anti-abortion position by calling it the pro-life position, since it has nothing to do with protecting life and has little to do with promoting life. Besides, I don’t think anti-abortion advocates are going to complain about this, since they are, factually, against abortion, so I am not misrepresenting their position.

* If you are anti-abortion, you must clearly declare this on any thread-starter you post, and give your numerical answer to the following question:

What maximum number of women dead from botched back alley abortions per year under an anti-abortion scheme do you consider a fair and just tradeoff to prevent all abortions that would happen under a pro-abortion scheme?

Repeatedly refusing to identify your position or your answer to this question will result in a ban. Answering zero will result in an immediate ban. Vague textual answers (such as “hundreds or a few thousands” or “infinite”) will be accepted.

For example, you may start a comment like this:
“Hello, my name is Thetis. I am pro-life, and my answer is around 200,000.”

(I will accept pro-life and pro-death labels for the sake of comments, although I refuse to use them because they are technically incorrect)

* If you are pro-choice, you must clearly declare this on any thread-starter you post, and then give your numerical answer to the following question:

What maximum number of children afflicted with spina bifita/Tay-Sachs/leukemia/cancer/Downs Syndrome/etc a year born under a pro-choice scheme do you consider a fair and just tradeoff to prevent the distress of women who would not be allowed to have a child under a pro-abortion scheme?

Repeatedly refusing to identify your position or your answer to this question will result in a ban. Answering zero will result in an immediate ban. Vague textual answers (such as “hundreds or a few thousands” or “infinite”) will be accepted.

For example, you may start a comment like this:
“Hello, my name is Seth. I am pro-choice, and my answer is infinity.”

* If you are pro-abortion, you are under no obligation to answer anything, although I would appreciate if you clearly declared that you are pro-abortion. Pro-abortion people who do not identify themselves will not be banned.

* If you are undecided, you must clearly declare that you are undecided. Anyone declaring themselves undecided and then manifesting a clear anti-abortion or pro-choice bias will be banned.

* If you lean on one or the other but are not fully in any camp, please clearly declare your position and answer either the pro-choice or the anti-abortion question, at your convenience.

Repeatedly refusing to identify your position or your answer to this question will result in a ban. Answering zero will result in an immediate ban. Vague textual answers (such as “hundreds or a few thousands” or “infinite”) will be accepted.

For example, you may start a comment like this:
“Hello, my name is Rathford. I am leaning towards pro-choice but against abortions in the second trimester, and my answer to the pro-choice question is seven billion.”

***

This is not a trick or a joke, but a very serious request. Don’t whine that I am censoring you. I will do everything I can to help sincere people who wish to comment but find themselves unable to do so. In such a case, please post a comment here and I will try to help you out.

Note that this entry is not part of the pro-abortion series, and comments are not subject to the rules. Please post requests for clarification, requests for help answering the questions, etc. I am open to changing the questions if they are too unclear for you.

Rubbish. Here are the facts:

A charming introduction from our dickhead. As we go on, remember that he called this list of nonsense “facts.”

1. SUICIDE: Men’s suicide rate is 4.6 times higher than that of women’s. [Dept. Health & Human Services -- 26,710 males vs 5,700 females]

Correct.

2. LIFE EXPECTANCY: Men’s life expectancy is seven (7) years shorter than women’s [National Center for Health Statistics -- males 72.3 yrs vs females 79 yrs] yet receive only 35% of government expenditures for health care and medical costs.

Correct, but irrelevant. The actual differential is 5 years, not 7, but anyway, women have had higher life expectancy at least since the early 1900s, so how the fuck can feminism possibly be to blame??

3. WAR: Men are almost exclusively the only victims of war [Dept. Defense -- Vietnam Casualties 47,369 men vs 74 women]

Made up. I hope I don’t have to point out how bizarre this “statistic” is. The rape and murder of Vietnamese women and children was a routine action by the US Army. Look up the My Lai massacre if you have to… but seriously, how can you be so ignorant about history?

4. WORKPLACE FATALITIES: Men account for more than 95% of all workplace fatalities.

Slightly exaggerated, and misleading. The correct percentage is 93%, not “more than 95%.” It is also misleading because it actually reflects sexism- the fact that men monopolize certain more dangerous professions such as aircraft pilots, flight engineers, and fishers.

5. MURDER: Men are murdered at a rate almost 5 times that of women. [Dept. Health & Human Services -- 26,710 men vs 5,700 women]

Irrelevant and misleading. Men’s murder rate is that much higher because men are mostly killed by other men. Men are the ones committing the homicides, not women.

6. CHILD CUSTODY: Women receive physical custody of 92% of all children of separation, and men only 4%. [Department of Health & Human Services]

Absolutely false. Women receive custody in 72% of cases, in the UK 71%. And that horrifies me: why are so many men still getting custody of children?? I hope one day we’ll get down to 4%!

7. JURY BIAS: Women are acquitted of spousal murder at a rate 9 times that of men [Bureau Justice Statistics -- 1.4% of men vs 12.9% of women]

8. COURT BIAS: Men are sentenced 2.8 times longer than women for spousal murder [Bureau Justice Statistics -- men at 17 years vs women at 6 years]

True but misleading. Gee, that couldn’t be because one woman out of four is victim of domestic violence, isn’t it?

9. JUSTICE SYSTEM BIAS: Women are assessed for Child Support on average at half the rate of men, yet are twice as likely to default on Child Support payments. Ninety Seven (97%) of all child support prosecutions are against fathers. [Census Bureau]

Grossly false. Men and women pay child support at close to the same rate.

10. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Numerous credible studies from independent researchers report that women are the initiators of domestic violence in 58% of all cases, and cause physical abuse in almost 50% of all cases, yet women only account for 6% of all criminal proceedings in such matters.

Made up. I could find no trace of any such “studies,” and they provide no citation whatsoever. They pulled it out of their ass (well, to be fair, they are assholes, so where else would it come from?).

11. CHILD VIOLENCE: Mothers commit 55% of all child murders and biological fathers commit 6%. NIS-3 indicates that Mother-only households are 3 times more fatal to children than Father-only households. Despite these compelling figures, children are systematically removed from the natural fathers who are their most effective protectors.

Grossly false. 97% of those convicted of violent crimes against children are male.

12. WEALTH: Women hold 65% of the total wealth in the USA [Fortune Magazine]

Grossly false. The real percentage is 51%.

Out of 12 points,
4 were correct (albeit 3 of those were misleading).
1 was irrelevant and misleading.
1 was slightly incorrect (and misleading).
4 were grossly false.
2 were made up.

A score of 33% (or if you’re very generous, 50%) is not a good score for a list that pretends to be factual.

The rest of his comment went beyond statistics and into pure MRA insanity, so I see no need to refute it. It’s just woman-hating bullshit. Here it is, if you’re curious:

1. Men pay more taxes than women at the same income level. Tax provisions are not gender neutral.

2. Men are provided no protection against sexual harassment at workplace and against rape and seduction.

3. Men do not have the choice of vocation. He is expected to subordinate his preferences to the needs of others in the family. That is because he is always the provider to others at the cost of his own personality. He has to just slog. He lives and dies for others. He is forced to don the mantle of the breadwinner for the whole family (including the extended family upon marriage) or else face a social death.

4. Men are not allowed the luxury of being the master of their own destiny.

5. Men are not accepted by the society the way they are – just normal human beings. He is reduced to the role of a robot – the eternal protector and provider with no desires of his own!

6. Men are not provided with a free and un-choked communication channel – a channel that listens to them without invalidating their feelings or ignoring or trivializing their problems.

7. No schemes are being furthered either by the Government or eminent social celebrities for boys the way they are happening for girls.
This has led to more boys dropping out of school resulting in in crease of juvenile delinquency. Shunned by the society, such boys grow up with gross inadequacy and ultimately turn criminals.

8. There is no concept of MEN’s RIGHTS, only RESPONSIBILITIES and DUTIES enshrined for them!

9. 2007: 57593 married men committed suicide vis-à-vis 30064 married women in India.

10. If we look back, in the last 62 years of independent India not a single rupee has ever been allocated for men’s welfare from the Union Budget.

11. Not a single constitutional or quasi-constitutional body has ever been formed to identify redress problems peculiar to men.

12. There’s no a National Commission for Men nor Men’s Welfare Ministry.

13. The numerous Anti-male and gender biased laws which are not gender-neutral.

14. Anti-male slant and negative stereotyping indulged in by media, television and films against men.

15. Negligence of health issues of men like prostate cancer, short life expectancy, high suicide rates, cardiac problems, diabetes etc.

16. Not a Single Attempt has ever been made to Recognize that Men Too Have Problems

17. Not a Single scheme ever been envisaged for Men’s Welfare.

18. On the other hand men are always discriminated against in the guise of women empowerment.

19. Lack of government urge on the private sector to come up with Health Products specifically targeted to diseases affecting men in large numbers.

20. The World Economic Forum does not recognize men as human beings, because it doesn’t conduct a study and publish Gender Index of Men similar to that of women.

If you needed any more evidence that these faggots live in Never-Never Land…

Consider local zoning and “safety” laws that require a seller of baked goods to rent expensive commercial property instead of operating out of their home, and to use standard industrial-sized ovens and dishwashers instead of the spare capacity of their regular household appliances. The only way to amortize that cost is by operating on a scale that requires several employees, lots of hours of paperwork, extensive remodelling to meet local code and ADA requirements, and so forth.

From the consumer standpoint, a major part of the price of the baked goods you buy is the embedded cost of that expensive rent, the cost of servicing the loans, and other overhead. And from the producer standpoint, all possibilities of starting out small with minimal capital outlays and overhead, and expanding incrementally with minimal risk, are foreclosed.

In every case, the effect is to require more hours of labor, more capital expenditures, and more overhead to be serviced, than a given unit of output would require for purely technical reasons.

Merry Christmas everyone. See you next year, when I will begin a series attacking both pro-choice and anti-abortion positions, which should be of great interest.

In Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Faith, he interviews a number of theologians, and unfortunately one of these happens to be William Lane Craig. Craig makes complete, absolute mush of the issue of miracles contravening natural law, demonstrating once again that he’s very bad at explaining things that should be soft pitches for any theologian worth his salt. Here is the best part, where he denies that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence:

This standard would prevent you from believing in all sorts of events that we do rationally embrace. For example, you would not believe the report on the evening news that the numbers chosen in last night’s lottery were 4, 2, 9, 7, 8 and 3, because that would be an event of extraordinary improbability. The odds against that are millions and millions to one, and therefore you should not believe it when the news reports it.

The Case for Faith, p65

Also on the same page:

I would agree with Hume that a natural resurrection of Jesus from the dead, without any sort of divine intervention, is enormously improbable. But that’s not the hypothesis. The hypothesis is that God raised Jesus from the dead. That doesn’t say anything against the laws of nature which say dead men don’t come back to life naturally.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Are you fucking kidding me? Craig, are you trolling us? Are you a deep undercover agent working for the Atheist Conspiracy?