From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Jim reiterates the chastity belt theory of forced pregnancy!
Date: 15 Nov 92 19:03:05 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <32682@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:

>So, to accept your argument we have to buy all
>of the assumptions implicit in equating child support payments and
>forced pregnancy.

My claim was only that child support payments are a heavy obligation
that can seriously affect the ability of the person burdened by the
obligation to live his life as he wants to.  There are obvious
differences between making such payments and being pregnant.  The
obligations we are subject to, though, depend on the situations we
find ourselves in, and since men can't find themselves in the
situation of being pregnant they can't be subject to an obligation
exactly equivalent to pregnancy.

I don't think I stated or implied that the legitimacy of forbidding
most abortions depends on how burdensome the obligation of child
support is -- it seems an irrelevancy to me, and I only said something
about it because you wanted me to name a burden on the father.

>Let's discuss the strength of links between several outcomes in a
>chain of events.  Link 1: Sex and pregnancy.  Link 2: Live birth and
>need for kidney transplant.  You seem to be assuming that the first
>link is so strong as to require a legal protection for the /z/e/f.
>For this reason, you want to force all women who become pregnant to
>have their bodies used to sustain the life of a /z/e/f/.  Does not the
>same reasoning suggest that all parents who become parents from
>consensual sex should be forced to use their bodies to sustain their
>children?  

Figures have been quoted in t.a. (by pro-choicers I believe) showing
that most women have at least one unintended pregnancy in the course
of their lives.  I don't believe it's true that most parents find that
their children need an organ donation for which the parents would be
the only available donors.  So the former situation seems the more
forseeable and the more universal, and it seems more reasonable to
expect people to take it into account in thinking about their lives.

>(1) You assume that sex, pregnancy, and birth part of our lives but
>grave medical difficulties for the children that result are not.
>Should we contact all the institutions and organizations that focus on
>children's illnesses and let them know about this?

Such difficulties are forseeable and parents are obligated to deal
with them.  The issue you raised is whether that obligation should
include a legally-enforceable obligation to be an organ donor if need
be.  I said I didn't have a very strong view on the subject, but since
organ donations (unlike pregnancy) haven't become part of the
universal pattern of life they seem less eligible as a matter for the
imposition of legal obligations.

I suppose another distinction is that only one person can be pregnant
with a particular z/e/f so the choice of the mother as the person who
has to carry it has no element of arbitrariness.  The same is not true
of organ transplants.

>What abortion tells me about the way we live is that many people have
>sex without intending to procreate.  Some of these people are probably
>negligent in acting to prevent what they subsequently do not desire.
>I would also guess that some of these people are not at all negligent
>and acted in good faith to prevent pregnancy.  Why is it that you want
>to interfere in the lives of women by forcing them to engage in bodily
>servitude to a /z/e/f/ they do not want?

Because the z/e/f has value not that different from the value of an
infant, because the only way the woman can avoid the servitude is by
destroying the z/e/f and because apart from cases of rape (and
presumably incest) requiring the continuation of the pregnancy would
not violate any right of autonomy any more than the general rule that
people are responsible for the forseeable results of their actions
does.

>You illustrate here the two central assumptions in what I have termed
>the chastity belt theory of forced pregnancy: (1) women who have
>consensual sex should be forced to engage in bodily servitude to a
>/z/e/f/, (2) the associated contention that male support payments,
>which are frequently avoided in real life, are a commensurate burden.
>I see a draconinan difference between compelling financial and bodily
>support.  There is no other moral, legal, or ethical situation where
>financial and bodily support are deemed equivalent.  The only possible
>explanation I can come up with for someone believing these two are
>equivalent in this situation is that there is a subconscious notion of
>punishment for women: punish the sluts for having sex.

As stated, I do not hold the second assumption with any rigor and
don't see why I have to hold it at all in order to support legal
prohibition of most abortions.  The further conclusion you draw seems
odd to me.  Why can't you imagine that someone might think that a
z/e/f has value rather like that of an infant and that protection of
that value is sufficient motivation for restrictions on abortion?

On what I view as very much a side issue, it seems to me that alimony
jail and giving people convicted of a misdemeanor the choice of paying
a fine or serving a short prison term are two situations in which our
legal situation treats a financial obligation and a bodily obligation
as convertible.  No doubt there are others -- if I contract to nurse
you through an illness and then refuse, I suppose I have the choice of
providing bodily services or paying financial damages.

>You feel that all women should want a pregnancy more than they they
>want malignant lung tissue; you are entitled to your opinion.

Not at all.  I believe that a z/e/f has a value that doesn't depend on
the feelings of the mother and that malignant lung tissue has no such
value.

>Does anyone know know the exact comparison between female mortality
>rates attributable to pregnancy and lung cancer?  My guess is that
>pregnancy is higher.

I was under the impression that people with lung cancer that goes
untreated generally don't survive, while people with pregnancies that
are not terminated generally don't die.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."
Newsgroups: talk.abortion