I think the issue of how rights interact is just too weedy for pro-choice advocates to make much progress there. Of the two options, I think they must simply bite the bullet and argue against fetal personhood, although I suspect at most pro-lifers will only be convinced that fetuses are not persons early in the pregnancy, if that.
I largely agree with what you've said here, but I think your example 6 (a fetus is a clump of cells) misses the point pro-choice advocates are making. They would disagree that an infant is just a clump of cells. If pressed, I think they'd admit that late in the pregnancy a fetus isn't a clump of cells either, but I take it they mean that at the point in the pregnancy where the fetus fits in a petri dish, give or take a few weeks, it is substantively just a clump of cells.
Generally speaking, I see most political messaging as being motivating to one's own side, and rarely motivating to the "other side". This is certainly the case with abortion.
The disparity between religious groups is interesting, as I would imagine they would be exposed to similar arguments against abortion.
My impression of pro-lifers is that there is generally an outlook coming from religious conviction that does not translate well to secular-speak. When pressed on this view, the spiral settles somewhere on: "a fetus is a human being". That is, of course, not contended by pro-choicers - it's agreed upon to be human by virtue that it has human DNA. The difference is that for a pro-lifer this implicitly matters (because human life is sacred), while not otherwise (because we cannot agree that there is inherent value to human life, when peering through a secular lens; value is a verb). If you try to divorce this from religion the pro-life stance sounds like "my gut feeling is that a fetus at conception is inherently valuable", which is arguably less persuasive than the sanctity of life.
"I believe you will not be persuasive unless you convince pro-lifers to abandon the idea of fetal personhood or argue persuasively that rights to bodily autonomy supersedes human life."
What really strikes me about this conclusion is that you put so much time and care into arriving at it, presumably reasoning that most of your readers really didn't know this. I suspect you are right, and they really don't know. That is really something to me. Seriously? Wasn't this obvious from the get-go?
Even more, isn't it obvious that pro-lifers are totally disgusted by the implication that most pro-choicers are basically willing to commit infanticide for the sake of sexual freedom? And, that "sexual freedom" just resolves as "impulsive depravity?"
It's extremely emotional for pro-lifers. When pro-choice girls with purple hair and nose piercings say, "My body, my right, my choice," pro-lifers hear an admission that "I'm a monster who lusts after men and murders her own offspring." There are some middle-of-the road people who do identify as pro-life, but having been raised by evangelicals I can tell you that you may as well admit that you come from a completely different corner of the galaxy than try to talk hard core lifers into something they will see as utterly loathsome. They frame the discussion in their minds with the sloppy abortion videos they saw in Sunday school - there's an extremely visceral reaction there, and getting through takes much, much more than just "Hey, maybe you should reconsider your philosophical stance about whether a fetus is morally equivalent to an infant."
Attorney here. You've left out an aspect of the issue.
Almost everyone agrees that a fetus has SOME DEGREE of right to bodily autonomy, no matter the stage of pregnancy. Because almost everyone supports the idea of it being a crime for, say, a man to cause the death of a fetus by assaulting a pregnant woman.
In fact, most states make that crime a HOMICIDE (and my own state, Ohio, makes it outright murder in some circumstances). Which is interesting, because - by definition - homicide requires that one human being cause the death of another human being.
After Roe v. Wade and its progeny, states in which causing the death of a fetus was a homicide responded by passing laws essentially creating an exception to homicide by allowing physicians to cause the death of the fetus under certain circumstances which qualify as abortion.
So those states didn't remove the laws making causing the death of a fetus a homicide - they just created the exception.
And the "logic" (such as it is) for that exception is very similar to the self-defense exception in relation to homicide. You know the typical arguments for abortion that include, "my body, my choice", "the fetus is a parasite that is leeching off the woman's body", "bodily autonomy", etc... All of those are, in essence, self-defense arguments.
But here's the thing... the self-defense argument regarding homicide has four elements - all of which must be proven in order to effectively establish the defense:
"First, with exceptions, the defendant must prove that he or she was confronted with an unprovoked attack.
Second, the defendant must prove that the threat of injury or death was imminent.
Third, the defendant must prove that the degree of force used in self-defense was objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
Fourth, the defendant must prove that he or she had an objectively reasonable fear that he or she was going to be injured or killed unless he or she used self-defense."
As such, the bodily autonomy argument fails... UNLESS... the fetus does not qualify as a human being.
But be careful what you wish for. If we're going to make a hard line rule that fetuses are not human beings, then all laws making it a homicide to cause the death of a fetus by assaulting a pregnant woman would be invalid.
People who are pro-choice make a lot of arguments that don't make any sense, legally AND scientifically speaking.
Another example is the "viability" argument, which is based on the idea that if the fetus cannot survive outside the mother's womb (i.e. that it is utterly dependent on the mother), then it can be aborted. The viability argument is and always has been silly and unscientific. Because:
“Human babies enter the world UTTERLY DEPENDENT on caregivers to tend to their every need. Although newborns of other primate species rely on caregivers, too, human infants are especially helpless because their brains are comparatively underdeveloped. Indeed, by one estimation a human fetus would have to undergo a gestation period of 18 to 21 months instead of the usual nine to be born at a neurological and cognitive development stage comparable to that of a chimpanzee newborn.”
There is ZERO distinction between a fetus and a newborn when it comes to dependence upon another human being to survive.
Thus, the viability argument is a ruse - it actually has NOTHING to do with whether or not the fetus/baby can survive outside the mother's womb (i.e. without support from the mother). It is SOLELY about the location of the fetus/baby.
In your conclusion, you stated:
"Ultimately, I believe you will not be persuasive unless you convince pro-lifers to abandon the idea of fetal personhood or argue persuasively that rights to bodily autonomy supersedes human life."
That is absolutely correct. But both of those approaches fail tradition concepts of criminal law and defenses to homicide. As such, persuading not only Christians, not only republicans, but also traditionalists from a legal perspective is going to be damned near impossible. Because abortion, generally speaking, qualifies as a homicide without a justifiable exception in most instances.
Personally, I'm a libertarian and a Christian. I'm willing to concede that "abortion" be legalized very early in the process - because 30-50% of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus in the first place. As such, while I assert that it is scientifically irrefutable that "life" begins at fertilization, that life does not yet qualify as a "human being" (if it did, then 30-50% of "human beings" that ever existed never even implanted in a woman's uterus. That seems untenable). My understanding of the situation is that a woman cannot truly be said to be "pregnant" - scientifically speaking - until the fertilized egg implants in the uterus.
As such, I'm not going to take issue from a legal perspective with contraception, morning after pills, and similar approaches (although I acknowledge that the intentional aspect of a morning after pill could raise moral questions - but I do not believe we have sufficient basis to pass laws about that issue).
It should be noted that if men and women were responsible with birth control (many types 99% effective) and used a morning after pill when/if they suspected birth control failed, then there would presumably be very few unwanted pregnancies.
I'm willing to consider the possibility of allowing abortion up to the time of "quickening". There were state laws allowing such abortions prior to Roe v. Wade, and even the Bible seems to reference that as a significant point in a pregnancy.
One final note - it is interesting that the pro-choice crowd essentially brought down Roe v. Wade themselves. The far left of the pro-choice crowd has consistently pushed to liberalize abortion laws more and more, later and later in pregnancy, etc... to the point that the extremists have even sometimes argued for a right to being able to abort right up to or even immediately after the baby has been born. That is not surprising, because the arguments I've discussed above create a slippery slope which leads directly to arguing for a right to abortions that late in the process.
But in what most people consider to be "socially liberal" European countries, most of those countries have abortion laws more restrictive than the US did. See here:
"Out of the 42 European countries that allow elective abortion, 39 countries limit elective abortion to 15 weeks’ gestation or earlier. The majority of these 39 European countries set gestational limits for elective abortion at or before 12 weeks’ gestation."
The law that the pro-choice crowd appealed to the Supreme Court in Dobbs was restricted abortion to no later than 15 weeks. The pro-choice left in the US could not allow that to stand. And they got smacked down by a conservative Supreme Court.
If they hadn't appealed in the Dobbs case, Roe v. Wade would still be the law. Ironic, isn't it?
Of course, another case might have come along and Roe might have been struck anyway. But I believe that the constant push of the pro-choice people to liberalize abortion more and more - far in excess of what most European countries allow - is the reason the pendulum has swung back the other way. Virtually zero republicans and Christians are going to support late term abortions, IMO.
But as you noted, a lot of republicans and Christians support abortion in some circumstances. If the left would just leave it alone at 15 weeks, the US would likely still have nationwide abortion "rights". But the pro-choice left in the US is, frankly, pretty ridiculous in its demands.
I think the issue of how rights interact is just too weedy for pro-choice advocates to make much progress there. Of the two options, I think they must simply bite the bullet and argue against fetal personhood, although I suspect at most pro-lifers will only be convinced that fetuses are not persons early in the pregnancy, if that.
I largely agree with what you've said here, but I think your example 6 (a fetus is a clump of cells) misses the point pro-choice advocates are making. They would disagree that an infant is just a clump of cells. If pressed, I think they'd admit that late in the pregnancy a fetus isn't a clump of cells either, but I take it they mean that at the point in the pregnancy where the fetus fits in a petri dish, give or take a few weeks, it is substantively just a clump of cells.
Generally speaking, I see most political messaging as being motivating to one's own side, and rarely motivating to the "other side". This is certainly the case with abortion.
The disparity between religious groups is interesting, as I would imagine they would be exposed to similar arguments against abortion.
My impression of pro-lifers is that there is generally an outlook coming from religious conviction that does not translate well to secular-speak. When pressed on this view, the spiral settles somewhere on: "a fetus is a human being". That is, of course, not contended by pro-choicers - it's agreed upon to be human by virtue that it has human DNA. The difference is that for a pro-lifer this implicitly matters (because human life is sacred), while not otherwise (because we cannot agree that there is inherent value to human life, when peering through a secular lens; value is a verb). If you try to divorce this from religion the pro-life stance sounds like "my gut feeling is that a fetus at conception is inherently valuable", which is arguably less persuasive than the sanctity of life.
"I believe you will not be persuasive unless you convince pro-lifers to abandon the idea of fetal personhood or argue persuasively that rights to bodily autonomy supersedes human life."
What really strikes me about this conclusion is that you put so much time and care into arriving at it, presumably reasoning that most of your readers really didn't know this. I suspect you are right, and they really don't know. That is really something to me. Seriously? Wasn't this obvious from the get-go?
Even more, isn't it obvious that pro-lifers are totally disgusted by the implication that most pro-choicers are basically willing to commit infanticide for the sake of sexual freedom? And, that "sexual freedom" just resolves as "impulsive depravity?"
It's extremely emotional for pro-lifers. When pro-choice girls with purple hair and nose piercings say, "My body, my right, my choice," pro-lifers hear an admission that "I'm a monster who lusts after men and murders her own offspring." There are some middle-of-the road people who do identify as pro-life, but having been raised by evangelicals I can tell you that you may as well admit that you come from a completely different corner of the galaxy than try to talk hard core lifers into something they will see as utterly loathsome. They frame the discussion in their minds with the sloppy abortion videos they saw in Sunday school - there's an extremely visceral reaction there, and getting through takes much, much more than just "Hey, maybe you should reconsider your philosophical stance about whether a fetus is morally equivalent to an infant."
Attorney here. You've left out an aspect of the issue.
Almost everyone agrees that a fetus has SOME DEGREE of right to bodily autonomy, no matter the stage of pregnancy. Because almost everyone supports the idea of it being a crime for, say, a man to cause the death of a fetus by assaulting a pregnant woman.
In fact, most states make that crime a HOMICIDE (and my own state, Ohio, makes it outright murder in some circumstances). Which is interesting, because - by definition - homicide requires that one human being cause the death of another human being.
After Roe v. Wade and its progeny, states in which causing the death of a fetus was a homicide responded by passing laws essentially creating an exception to homicide by allowing physicians to cause the death of the fetus under certain circumstances which qualify as abortion.
So those states didn't remove the laws making causing the death of a fetus a homicide - they just created the exception.
And the "logic" (such as it is) for that exception is very similar to the self-defense exception in relation to homicide. You know the typical arguments for abortion that include, "my body, my choice", "the fetus is a parasite that is leeching off the woman's body", "bodily autonomy", etc... All of those are, in essence, self-defense arguments.
But here's the thing... the self-defense argument regarding homicide has four elements - all of which must be proven in order to effectively establish the defense:
"First, with exceptions, the defendant must prove that he or she was confronted with an unprovoked attack.
Second, the defendant must prove that the threat of injury or death was imminent.
Third, the defendant must prove that the degree of force used in self-defense was objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
Fourth, the defendant must prove that he or she had an objectively reasonable fear that he or she was going to be injured or killed unless he or she used self-defense."
https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/5-2-self-defense/
Abortion fails to fulfill at least two, and possibly 3 of the elements of a self-defense argument.
I discuss the issue in much greater detail from a legal perspective here:
https://robwbright.substack.com/p/the-bodily-autonomy-abortion-argument
As such, the bodily autonomy argument fails... UNLESS... the fetus does not qualify as a human being.
But be careful what you wish for. If we're going to make a hard line rule that fetuses are not human beings, then all laws making it a homicide to cause the death of a fetus by assaulting a pregnant woman would be invalid.
People who are pro-choice make a lot of arguments that don't make any sense, legally AND scientifically speaking.
Another example is the "viability" argument, which is based on the idea that if the fetus cannot survive outside the mother's womb (i.e. that it is utterly dependent on the mother), then it can be aborted. The viability argument is and always has been silly and unscientific. Because:
“Human babies enter the world UTTERLY DEPENDENT on caregivers to tend to their every need. Although newborns of other primate species rely on caregivers, too, human infants are especially helpless because their brains are comparatively underdeveloped. Indeed, by one estimation a human fetus would have to undergo a gestation period of 18 to 21 months instead of the usual nine to be born at a neurological and cognitive development stage comparable to that of a chimpanzee newborn.”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-humans-give-birth-to-helpless-babies/
There is ZERO distinction between a fetus and a newborn when it comes to dependence upon another human being to survive.
Thus, the viability argument is a ruse - it actually has NOTHING to do with whether or not the fetus/baby can survive outside the mother's womb (i.e. without support from the mother). It is SOLELY about the location of the fetus/baby.
In your conclusion, you stated:
"Ultimately, I believe you will not be persuasive unless you convince pro-lifers to abandon the idea of fetal personhood or argue persuasively that rights to bodily autonomy supersedes human life."
That is absolutely correct. But both of those approaches fail tradition concepts of criminal law and defenses to homicide. As such, persuading not only Christians, not only republicans, but also traditionalists from a legal perspective is going to be damned near impossible. Because abortion, generally speaking, qualifies as a homicide without a justifiable exception in most instances.
Personally, I'm a libertarian and a Christian. I'm willing to concede that "abortion" be legalized very early in the process - because 30-50% of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus in the first place. As such, while I assert that it is scientifically irrefutable that "life" begins at fertilization, that life does not yet qualify as a "human being" (if it did, then 30-50% of "human beings" that ever existed never even implanted in a woman's uterus. That seems untenable). My understanding of the situation is that a woman cannot truly be said to be "pregnant" - scientifically speaking - until the fertilized egg implants in the uterus.
As such, I'm not going to take issue from a legal perspective with contraception, morning after pills, and similar approaches (although I acknowledge that the intentional aspect of a morning after pill could raise moral questions - but I do not believe we have sufficient basis to pass laws about that issue).
It should be noted that if men and women were responsible with birth control (many types 99% effective) and used a morning after pill when/if they suspected birth control failed, then there would presumably be very few unwanted pregnancies.
I'm willing to consider the possibility of allowing abortion up to the time of "quickening". There were state laws allowing such abortions prior to Roe v. Wade, and even the Bible seems to reference that as a significant point in a pregnancy.
One final note - it is interesting that the pro-choice crowd essentially brought down Roe v. Wade themselves. The far left of the pro-choice crowd has consistently pushed to liberalize abortion laws more and more, later and later in pregnancy, etc... to the point that the extremists have even sometimes argued for a right to being able to abort right up to or even immediately after the baby has been born. That is not surprising, because the arguments I've discussed above create a slippery slope which leads directly to arguing for a right to abortions that late in the process.
But in what most people consider to be "socially liberal" European countries, most of those countries have abortion laws more restrictive than the US did. See here:
"Out of the 42 European countries that allow elective abortion, 39 countries limit elective abortion to 15 weeks’ gestation or earlier. The majority of these 39 European countries set gestational limits for elective abortion at or before 12 weeks’ gestation."
https://www.facebook.com/robwbright/posts/10158455630495925
The law that the pro-choice crowd appealed to the Supreme Court in Dobbs was restricted abortion to no later than 15 weeks. The pro-choice left in the US could not allow that to stand. And they got smacked down by a conservative Supreme Court.
If they hadn't appealed in the Dobbs case, Roe v. Wade would still be the law. Ironic, isn't it?
Of course, another case might have come along and Roe might have been struck anyway. But I believe that the constant push of the pro-choice people to liberalize abortion more and more - far in excess of what most European countries allow - is the reason the pendulum has swung back the other way. Virtually zero republicans and Christians are going to support late term abortions, IMO.
But as you noted, a lot of republicans and Christians support abortion in some circumstances. If the left would just leave it alone at 15 weeks, the US would likely still have nationwide abortion "rights". But the pro-choice left in the US is, frankly, pretty ridiculous in its demands.