El Pozolero Thought Experiment

The **El Pozolero Thought Experiment** is a pro-life argument used against abortion abolitionists who argue that women who have abortions should go to prison, and that to say otherwise would mean that pro-life people do not desire equal protection for both born and unborn children under the law and that pro-life people are hypocrites for saying it is justice for terrorists, rapists, arsonists and other criminals to go to prison but argue against the idea of throwing post-abortive women into prison.

## Background

*For more information, see* Criminalization-Free the States

Abortion abolitionists like those who are members of the abolitionist group *Free the States*, argue that pro-life people see women as victims of pro-choice rhetoric, as opposed to the alleged "true view" that women are actually accomplices to it. They believe that mothers and fathers are "actively seeking out death centers and contracting with serial killers as they take their children away to death." They argue that this mentality that women are victims of abortion allows for DIY (do-it-yourself) abortions, penalties are deterrents and the idea that such a mentality allowed Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in America in 1973, to become law in the first place.

The El Pozolero Thought Experiment was created by pro-life activist John Taylor to combat this line of thinking.

## The thought experiment

The thought experiment is named after El Pozolero, a fictional villain from the video game Ghost Recon: Wildlands. In the game, El Pozolero is tasked with disposing of the bodies of those the cartel has "disappeared" throughout Bolivia, the nation the game takes place in. The game reveals that while El Pozolero is viewed by many as a heartless monster, he is actually a developmentally disabled with the emotional range and intellectual capacity of a small child, and is incapable of comprehending the horrific nature of his work.

The thought experiment then asks the abortion abolitionist whether it is just to send the man to prison (or give him the death penalty) despite his mental handicap or send him off to a facility where he can medical treatment in a facility where he would ideally get rehabilitated and released.

The reasoning behind the thought experiment is as follows: if the abolitionist chooses the first scenario, they are saying that women who have abortions, who have been (to pro-life people) misled into believing that abortion is healthcare and that unborn children are parasites/clumps of cells should go to prison even though technically their culpability is less due to being misled and that the God of the Bible (the basis on which the abolitionist rests their argument) is completely apathetic to the circumstances behind every woman murdering their unborn child, which would make Him unmerciful and therefore unloving according to the logic presented by the Christian Bible, in addition to being guilty of ignoring the breadth and reality of what a legal case against abortion used to look like before Roe v. Wade became law and what it could look like once it is overturned. If the abolitionist instead opts for the second scenario, they are agreeing that women do not deserve to go to prison for something they weren't responsible for, namely, being told that abortion is morally defensible and that subjecting women to prison time for having abortions is actually a miscarriage of justice, a gross misrepresentation of who God is, and unfair to women across the United States of America, and that therefore the abolitionist position for reversing the legalization of abortion is unreasonable because it ignores breadth and reality of what a legal case against abortion used to look like before Roe v. Wade became law and acknowledges what it could look like once it is overturned.