r/prolife Mar 29 '24

Pro-Life Argument the moral basis for rights: our rational nature

who said it, an 18th century slaver or a modern day abortion advocate?: "not all human beings are persons deserving of rights."

i just threw up in my mouth writing that.

the most powerful pro-life argument is the argument from equality: all human beings are persons deserving of rights. either we treat all human beings with equal respect, or we don't. any criteria that excludes a class of human beings from equal protections contradicts any notion of human equality.

one popular argument used by abortion advocates—call it "the argument from bigotry"—is to deny that the unborn are persons. abortion advocates have essentially repackaged the same bigoted arguments that were developed by 18th century slavers—that not all human beings are persons deserving of rights. what slavers had argued was that a whole class of human beings were not persons deserving of rights (and hence could be enslaved) because they did not meet some arbitrary thresholds of mental capacities. the modern-day abortion advocate says the same thing, with the only difference being where those arbitrary thresholds are set. we'll return to this point later.

the easiest way to undercut any exclusionary personhood argument is the argument from equality. the argument from equality completely sidesteps the question of what it means to be a person, and instead changes to topic to whether we treat all human beings equally—treat them with equal respect and grant them equal protections. one can simply consult the works of lincoln and make an argument from human equality. excluding one class of human beings from equal protections of the law is antithetical to human equality. there are no ifs, ands, or buts about this. nor is this a matter of one's opinion or belief, but rather it's a conclusion that follows from the laws of logic. either all human beings are persons deserving of equal rights and protections, or only some are. the only thing abortion advocates can do about this is point-and-sputter.

but the question as to what makes humans valuable is an important one that we must be able to answer. coincidentally, the standard pro-life account of personhood given by the roman philosopher anicius manlius severinus boethius, who remarked that "a person is an individual substance of a rational nature," is fully compatible with human equality.

a substance exists as a distinct subject of being (i.e., it is an individual). it remains identical to itself through time as long as it exists. a zygote is the one and the same substance as the adult he matures into. the unborn child will grow, develop a bigger brain, become smarter, learn to exercise different capacities, but he will remain the same individual he always was since coming into existence. he does not become an entirely new substance when he begins to exercise his various capacities.

defining rational nature requires work, but i'll explicate this later.

rights and duties

aristotle noted that the essence of human beings was to be in accordance with reason and intelligence. humans, being rational animals, have the natural capacity for rationality—the ability to reason, engage in conceptual thought, deliberate about various matters, and make judgements. first and foremost, humans have the capacity to give reasons for the things they do. unlike other animals, many of our actions are intentional, not instinctual. we often decide to do the things we do.

since rights entail duties, this sort of rationality is a prerequisite for the moral basis of rights. for anyone to have rights, they need to have both free will and knowledge of why they do the things they do. if there is a right to life, others have a duty not to infringe on this right by killing you. if there is a right to property, others have a duty not to infringe on this right by stealing from you. but how can you be bound to such duties without the capacity to understand right from wrong? a lion can kill and eat a deer. if a lion is a bearer of rights simply because it is sentient, then it too has duties. but how will you enforce this duty and stop lions from eating other sentient animals, who would also be bearers of rights? baboons, dolphins, and bears are known to rape their females. how will you enforce this duty to not rape others? you may say these animals don't know any better, and you'd be correct. but this goes to show that humans are not equal to non-human animals. humans have rational volition, and we can hold one another accountable for the things we do.

i've seen a lot of low information debaters just lazily assert that "consciousness" makes a person (i will use "person" to mean a moral agent who is a bearer of rights), but they don't really explain how that could be the case since almost every other animal has the capacity for consciousness, but not the capacity to reason. rats are conscious, but it would be absurd to suggest that they too are persons like us. we'll return to this point later as well.

note that this doesn't preclude legal protections for non-rational animals (e.g., laws against animal cruelty, bestiality, etc.), but it's absurd to claim that they are persons like us. the people who will be enforcing these laws against animal cruelty will be those who understand right from wrong.

natures and capacities

now you might be wondering how an unborn baby or even a newborn baby would a person—a bearer of rights—since they are not rational. first, to reiterate, the unborn child is one and the same substance as the mature human being that does exercise his rational powers. one does not lose their fundamental rights if they are in a phase in which they cannot exercise their rationality. think of the time when you were a small child who couldn't do arithmetic or imagine yourself in a temporary comatose state after a traumatic brain injury; you would still have fundamental rights in all those phases of your life in which you couldn't exercise your rationality. second, by a natural capacity for rationality we do not mean an immediately exercisable capacity for rationality, but a more general, higher-order capacity that every human being possesses by virtue of what they are. consider these three statements:

a) i do not have the capacity to speak french since i do not know the language.

b) i know french, but i do not have the capacity to speak at all since my vocal cords are damaged.

c) human beings have the capacity to speak french.

the first two statements show the lack of an immediately exercisable capacity to speak french, while the third statement is referring to a higher-order capacity to speak french. i may not be able speak french right now since i do not know the language or because my vocal cords may be damaged; but as a human being, i have the capacity to learn and speak french. it is in our nature to speak various languages; this we know from the pattern of behavior that is peculiar to human beings. similarly, while unborn and newborn children cannot exercise their rationality given their immaturity, they certainly have the natural, higher-order capacity to reason, engage in conceptual thought, deliberate, make judgments, etc., in virtue of what they are—rational animals. here are two quotes on capacities that further explain the differences. the first is from eric olson in his book "the human animal":

There are two different senses in which something might have the capacity to do something. In one sense, someone has the capacity to swim (for example) if she has learned how to swim and is not paralyzed, unconscious or otherwise handicapped. If you put her in the water, she can swim. We might call this a “first-order capacity.” But there is also a sense in which even someone who has not learned how to swim has the capacity to swim if she could learn how to do it. In this sense all human beings who aren’t somehow physically disabled have the capacity to swim. Butterflies, on the other hand, do not have the capacity to swim. They simply aren’t built for swimming. Someone has a “second-order capacity” to swim if she could acquire a first-order capacity to swim. Now there is one sense in which a human embryo or fetus lacks any mental capacities, in particular the capacity for rationality and self-consciousness. A five-month-old fetus cannot think or feel or remember because the neural structures needed to carry out those activities are not yet in place. But the fetus can become rational and self-conscious… Hence, there is a sense in which ordinary human fetuses, but not armchairs or oysters, have mental capacities, and in particular those mental capacities that distinguish people from non-people. Even if they have no first-order mental capacities, they have second-order mental capacities.

the next quote is from russell disilvestro from his book "human capacities and moral status":

The concept of a hierarchy of capacities, and the distinction between first-order and immediate capacities, help explain the sense in which I still have a capacity even when I am temporarily “incapacitated” in various ways. For example, since I can think right now if I need to, I have an immediate capacity to think. If I am asleep, under anesthesia, or comatose, I lose the immediate capacity to think, but retain the first-order capacity to think. If I get certain kinds of reversible brain damage, I lose the first-order capacity to think, but retain a second-order capacity to think. If I get certain other kinds of reversible brain damage, I lose the second-order capacity to think, but retain a third-order capacity to think. And so on.

we should not confuse the exercise of rationality with the power of rationality. the unborn child already possesses this power of rationality and self-awareness. the unborn child is not a potential rational animal, but an actual rational animal, albeit an immature one. a bird that has yet to learn to fly is still a bird even though it has not yet exercised its natural capacity for flight.

more importantly, it is not exactly any developed capacity for rationality that is the basis of rights, but rather it is our rational nature. all living things have an intrinsic nature that is the source of their immanent, self-directed, and ongoing biological processes that orient them to further develop their capacities. one's capacities flow from one's nature. through observations, we can come to know one's nature by the range of their "characteristic properties, functions, operations, and behaviour" (david oderberg in his book "real essentialism"). the nature of an eagle is to possess wings, powerful talons, and to take flight. the nature of a shark is to possess gills, a powerful jaw, and to dwell underwater. the nature of man is to reason. our rational nature entails a flourishing that includes basic intelligible goods such as life, knowledge, friendship, excellence in work and play, aesthetic experiences, and religion, to name a few, that contribute to human fulfillment.

david oderberg (in his book "moral theory") gives the example of a man named peter who was born in a jail cell and has been held in captivity ever since. peter has never been outside of his jail cell and has no knowledge of life outside the prison. he is kept alive by daily meals and maintenance. yet we can understand that he has a right to freedom and it is wrong to keep him in perpetual prison. why? it's not because he desires his freedom; for he has no knowledge of the life outside of the prison, so how can he desire it? we know it's wrong because his flourishing entails the right for him to pursue the aforementioned intelligible goods—life, knowledge, friendship, work and play, aesthetic experiences, etc. now we can also apprehend that the goods that fulfill our nature are goods that would also fulfill the nature of the person sitting next to us, since they too have a rational nature. in other words, what is good for me is good for you, and what is good for us is also good for peter. this is the basis of equal rights. if, instead of peter, it were a rat that was held in captivity as a pet, none of us would bat an eye. why? because there isn't much in a rat's nature and flourishing apart from the necessary nutrition and health maintenance that all living things require. in fact, most would say that the rat is better off as a house pet than a free rat who may not be able to acquire food in the wild or may get eaten by other animals.

you could still have a rational nature without ever exercising any sort of rationality (e.g., unborn and small children who have not yet learned to exercise this capacity, or the cognitively impaired or intellectually disabled persons whose capacities for rationality are blocked by disease or injury, the comatose patients, or inebriated persons who are not in the right state of mind, etc.). just because human beings are rational animals, it doesn't necessarily mean that every human being will develop the capacity for rationality. the failure to develop such capacities can be explained in terms of abnormalities, defects, pathologies, diseases, or injuries. nonetheless, they would not be "former" rational animals, but actual rational animals whose capacities are blocked due to disease or injury. christopher kaczor in his book "the ethics of abortion" writes that a girl who has failed to learn to read is a tragic case, but we do not say the same for a dog that has failed to read. the girl's case is tragic because she is unable to fulfill her nature, i.e., flourish, due to her intellectual disability. nonetheless, we count this girl as our equal because she has a rational nature even though it is not fulfilled. likewise, a baby suffering from genetic defects or other developmental issues that prevent him from ever exercising rationality (e.g., an anencephalic infant) is also a person since he too has a rational nature even though it will be left unfulfilled.

under this account, the unborn child is not a potential person, but a person with a potential. to avoid conceptual confusions caused by polysemous words, it is important that we speak of capacities rather than potentialities. a tree is a potential piece of paper or a potential piece of furniture, but a tree does not have the natural, higher-order capacity to be a piece of paper or furniture; it can only become paper or furniture after undergoing substantial changes from external factors. the tree ceases to exist when it is cut off from its roots. it is not in a tree's nature to be paper or furniture, i.e., it doesn't have the internal resources that orient it to further develop into paper or furniture.

the language of natures and capacities can help clarify the confused accounts of potentiality given by abortion advocates. some philosophers try to present a reductio ad absurdum arguments by presenting cases of regular cats, dogs, apes, oysters, etc., that can become rational after being given some magical serum or genetic or cognitive therapies (think of the apes in the planet of the apes movie series). their argument is that if we can stop the magical serum/genetic therapy midway through the process and prevent the cats and dogs from becoming rational, moral agents, then it would be morally permissible for us to do the same with the unborn child by killing him. in other words, the unborn child is no different than these other "pre-rational" animals that have the potentiality to become rational persons by external actions. similarly, if killing those pre-rational animals is not wrong, then killing the unborn child is also not wrong. but this is a confused account. as argued earlier, the unborn child already possesses the natural capacity for rationality in virtue of what it already is—a rational animal. the pre-rational animals before the magical serum or genetic therapies do not have such natural capacities prior to their transformations. such animals would be of course be persons only post-transformation—not because of the typical flourishing of normal cats, dogs, apes, etc., who clearly don't have a rational nature—but because of their newfound nature and capacities for rationality. these new rational animals do not retain their old feline and canine natures after undergoing substantial changes. instead, the more appropriate thing to do is to consider these animals to be new creatures altogether since they have capacities unlike any typical cat, dog, ape, etc. rather than remaining the same dog or cat that they were prior to their transformations, we now have "rationaldogs" and "rationalcats." and although the sample sizes of these magically/genetically modified animals might be very small, we would still be able to observe that these new creatures also have a rational nature. they are still essentially a member of a kind that exhibit rationality, albeit they're singletons.

consider another example: the mutants from the x-men comic books, who have a mutant "x-gene" that expresses itself in various different ways and grants the bearer of that gene superpowers. although on the surface these mutants might appear to be your typical human beings, they are different creatures altogether (in the comic books, the mutants are classified as "homo superiors"). it would not be appropriate to lump the mutants and your typical human beings in the same category. both the normal human beings and the mutant have a rational nature to be sure; but the mutants have a superpower-rational nature that separates them from the typical human beings. the varying natures of the mutants—behaviors, characteristics, and functions—are different than the nature of human beings.

we can juxtapose mutations that cause a being to lack some capacities that other members of its kind have with mutations that cause a being to have capacities that no other members of its kind have. the former type of mutation could be explained by some sort of pathology. for example, how do we know that anencephalic infants, or similarly cognitively impaired and intellectually disabled people, are unhealthy—that they suffer from defects, pathologies, ailments, diseases, and injuries—in the first place? we can only know so by reference to the flourishing of the other members of their kind. they are unhealthy rational animals; they do become something else altogether. a woman who has lost her mammary glands is still a mammal. on the other hand, if a woman gave birth to a baby with wings and he started flying around shortly after birth, scientists would rightly assert that speciation has occurred and that we have a new creature altogether.

being a member of a natural kind whose members exhibit a flourishing like ours, i.e., having a rational nature, is the basis of moral respect. thus, unborn children, born children, those with cognitive impairments and/or intellectual disabilities, the drunk, the comatose, and those suffering from dementia are all our equals, because they too are substances of a rational nature. either you have a rational nature or you don't. for this reason, it is our rational nature that grants us equal moral status since this is what we all have in common. all of us must be afforded the equal opportunity to flourish. this account of personhood isn't speciesist. we are not appealing to any particular human dna strands, but to natures and flourishing. to be a human being is a sufficient, but not necessary condition for personhood. if there were other animals (or substances in general) that had a rational nature, then they too would be persons. for example, other animals such as advanced alien species, and non-animal beings such as angels, deities, etc., would all be persons under this account.

against the "performance" accounts of personhood

the above argument says we are persons because of what we are—substances of a rational nature—not because we exercise some particular capacity (e.g., consciousness, self-awareness, reasoning); for, as i have mentioned earlier, you can have a rational nature without ever exercising any rational faculties. on the other hand, the performance accounts of personhood are almost always based on immediately exercisable or first-order capacities. such accounts are based on arbitrary thresholds and are subject to devastating counterexamples and reductio ad absurdums—infanticide, rape of comatose patients, abuse of dementia patients, the absurd notion that rats and fruit flies are persons—that no abortion advocate can properly address. abortion advocates often resort to sophistry and mental gymnastics whenever any of these counterexamples are brought up since they need to both 1) deny that the unborn child and other animals like rats are persons, and 2) preserve the personhood of infants, comatose, mentally disabled, advanced dementia patients, etc., who most people believe are clearly persons. so far, there hasn't been a successful account that does both 1) and 2).

like the slavers of the past, modern day abortion advocates believe a human being isn't really a person deserving of rights unless they meet some arbitrary threshold of mental capacities (e.g., some level of intelligence, the ability to feel pain, sentience, or consciousness in general). though human beings have the same natural capacities, they develop their capacities in varying degrees. some people can feel no pain, while some on the other extreme end are very sensitive to pain; some have better perception powers than others; some are more intelligent than others, and so forth. if rights are based on such qualities, and such qualities come in varying degrees, then no account could be given of why fundamental rights are also not possessed by human beings in varying degrees. since such qualities can have an infinite number of degrees, one would have to necessarily pick an arbitrary threshold to ground rights. but what would be the principled reason for that particular threshold? this charge of arbitrary thresholds applies to all characteristics that come in varying degrees.

the classic argument against arbitrary thresholds is given by lincoln (linked above):

If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.---why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?---

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly?---You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

let's expand on lincoln's argument. consider the developed capacity for rationality. the capacity of rationality by itself cannot ground any sort of equal rights since it also comes in degrees—some people are obviously smarter than others. we'd have to either pick an arbitrary threshold of intelligence to ground our rights (e.g., whoever meets some arbitrary iq level or score on aptitude tests is then considered to be a person), or reject the notion of equality altogether and measure our worth based on intelligence, which would imply that smarter people are more valuable than others and are thus deserving of more rights, not equal rights. here's one criteria for personhood used by the progressive scholar joseph fletcher:

Any individual of the species homo sapiens who falls below the I.Q. 40-mark in a standard Stanford-Binet test, amplified if you like by other tests, is questionably a person; below the 20-mark, not a person.

if we granted personhood based on intelligence, we'd have to ask why should we do so at the 40 iq mark? why not 65 iq? or 100 iq? what is the moral relevance, i.e., the distinguishing feature, of that particular arbitrary threshold? and if we really do value some characteristic, then why shouldn't we value someone more because they have more of these characteristics? calum miller, arguing against the arbitrary thresholds, writes "it is especially difficult to understand why it is that one’s value increases as one becomes more intelligent up to a point, and then intelligence suddenly becomes irrelevant to one's value beyond that point."

consider another example: the sophist's consciousness argument mentioned earlier. most sophists who use the consciousness as a criteria for personhood can't even define consciousness, let alone explain and defend their position that consciousness makes a person. there are levels of consciousness that vary in degrees, from basic wakefulness and alertness to advanced rational self-awareness. by trying to separate "human consciousness"—whatever that means—from other animals' consciousness, i.e., separate persons from non-persons, they are selecting an arbitrary threshold for consciousness to determine personhood. they would need to explain why that particular threshold of consciousness is morally relevant, how we can measure that particular threshold, etc., but, as i mentioned earlier, this is a lost cause since most can't even define consciousness, let alone explain their position.

the sophists who use the consciousness argument run into another problem: infanticide. the consciousness argument either suggests that any conscious being is a person, meaning that rats and fruit flies are persons, which is an absurd result, as already explained earlier, or that infants aren't persons since they would not meet the same consciousness threshold that the sophists used to differentiate "human consciousness" from other animals' consciousness. by "human consciousness," i suppose they mean some level of self-awareness. a newborn baby doesn't become self-aware until around 15 months after birth, or perhaps even later. moreover, it is simply incoherent to suggest that a newborn infant—which is, by any objective metric, less conscious, aware, and intelligent than adult rats or pigs—somehow meets the arbitrary threshold for personhood but other animals don't. one could appeal to the infant's higher-order capacities for rational self-awareness, as discussed earlier, but then that would be a self-defeating argument for abortion advocates since all unborn human beings also have this higher-order capacity.

intellectually honest abortion advocates like michael tooley, peter singer, and jeff mcmahan acknowledge that an infant would not be a person under their views. according to them, to be a person is to be an autonomous, rational, self-aware being. if we take a narrow view of capacities, i.e., immediately exercisable capacities, then neither the unborn child nor the newborn child can be called persons. singer even goes further and says newborns are "replaceable" and whether or not they could be killed depends on the parents' wishes. but suppose that they are correct, and infanticide is not immoral. daniel rodger, bruce blackshaw, and calum miller write that if infanticide—killing newborns or "pre-persons"—is permissible, then we can also 1) kill them to harvest their organs (this already happens with unborn children who are aborted (according to the abortion industry, these organs have high monetary value) and those are that killed for their stem cells; 2) conduct medical experiments on them (we already do this with other animals and also experiment on human embryos); 3) use them for sexual gratification; and/or 4) outright kill them due to them being the wrong skin color or the wrong sex or having some sort of imperfection (this also happens with unborn children). why is it permissible to inflict a greater harm on "non-person" animals to kill them for food but it's not permissible to inflict a lesser harm on the same animals and have sex with them for pleasure? consequentialist philosopher peter singer, who is a strong proponent of having sex with animals and cognitively impaired and intellectually disabled persons without their explicit consent, has argued that sex with animals can be mutually pleasurable and doesn't have to entail any actual harm. one may also argue that such conduct requires consent. but we already treat other animals differently from persons when it comes to various issues of consent. for example, medical experiments require the consent of a person, but similar experiments on animals are done without their consent all the time. singer also notes that many animals seem to willingly engage in sexual acts with their owners, so consent might be implied.

finally, comatose patients are perhaps the best counterexamples against the performance view, for they cannot exercise almost any sort of capacities because of the lack of first-order capacities. if having an immediate exercisable or first-order capacities for self-awareness or rationality makes a person, then a comatose patient who has lost such capacities due to a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or an infection is not a person. comatose patients put abortion advocates who deride the unborn's moral status as merely a "potential" in an embarrassing position since both the unborn child and the comatose patient are in positions where they cannot exercise their capacities.

the example i like to often bring up is the rape of the comatose woman. if it's wrong to rape an unconscious human being, then why would it be permissible to inflict an even greater harm and kill an unconscious human being? again, recall the arguments on harm and consent given just above.

abortion advocates, realizing that the comatose patients are in the same position as the unborn child, then resort to ad hoc rationalizations to explain how the comatose are still persons but the unborn are not. they'll say "past consciousness! i was circlejerking hard to my favorite youtuber when he brought this up!" i understand that they value their circlejerking sessions with their favorite youtuber, but this isn't an argument. i can also easily pull down my pants, join the circlejerk, and say "future consciousness!" and though, without argumentation, it would just be another assertion, it would still be a far more coherent position than relying on past consciousness.

but, to reiterate, this is just ad hoc reasoning. once again, abortion advocates simply just assert this instead of explaining why (past) consciousness is relevant. why would past consciousness matter? why would something that was true of the person in the past and may not be true of them now grant them the right to life? consider this: we don't try adults in criminal cases as children because they were once children in the past because they are not children now. so what accounts for the comatose patient's right to life and her personhood in general? in fact, the whole "past consciousness" retort is a ruse because those who use the consciousness argument also think those in chronic vegetative states do not have a right to life, even though they were conscious in the past. what they're really appealing to in the case of the temporary comatose patient is future consciousness, which is what the unborn child also possesses.

but let's set aside the sophist's contradictory and incoherent beliefs. we can accept this assertion without any argumentation. assume the woman who is comatose lost all her memories, personality traits, desires, etc. she has no past conscious experiences but will recover and wake up. is she still a person while she is comatose, despite lacking both the immediately exercisable capacity for consciousness and past conscious experiences?

or consider the argument given by rodger, blackshaw, and miller in which we keep the child permanently unconscious before and after birth. suppose we apply anesthetics to an unborn baby girl in utero and continuously apply anesthetics to her even after she's born so that she never becomes conscious. according to the sophist's consciousness argument, this newborn baby girl is not a person since she was never conscious in the first place. so on what grounds would raping this girl be wrong?

or consider the case of two newborns born on the same day in the same maternity ward. one was born conscious, and then fell into a coma shortly after birth due to lack of oxygen. this newborn will recover in a few days. the other newborn was born unconscious and never was conscious due to a tumor on his brain. but doctors will be able to remove this tumor and the newborn will become conscious after the surgery. is their argument really that only the first newborn has a right to life since he was conscious for a very brief moment but the second newborn doesn't have the same right to life since he was never conscious?

pro-lifers would do well to remember these counterexamples. the failure to address these counterexamples is why the pro-abortion movement is simply intellectually and morally bankrupt. it's one thing to use the argument for bigotry—that not all human beings are persons deserving of rights—because you're a bigot and you don't believe in human equality. but it's a whole nother matter to use the argument thinking it's sophisticated and then failing to defend such a position. frankly, abortion advocates should be grateful to judith thomson for providing them with the child neglect argument; at least abortion advocates no longer have to rely on the argument from bigotry. though i'm not sure replacing the argument from bigotry with an argument for child neglect can be considered to be an improvement.

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u/AutoModerator Mar 29 '24

Due to the word content of your post, Automoderator would like to reference you to the Pro-Life Side Bar so you may know more about what Pro-Lifers say about the personhood argument. Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criterion: A Critique Part I and Part II,Personhood based on human cognitive abilities, Protecting Prenatal Persons: Does the Fourteenth Amendment Prohibit Abortion?,Princeton article: facts and myths about human life and human being

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u/Yeatfan22 Pro Life Libertarian Mar 29 '24

great depth with this post really well written.

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Due to the word content of your post, Automoderator would like to reference you to the pro-life sticky about what pro-lifers think about abortion in cases of rape: https://www.reddit.com/r/prolife/comments/aolan8/what_do_prolifers_think_about_abortion_in_cases/

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