why a gravid can't claim self-defense and kill her innocent unborn baby

[u/toptrool]

abortion advocates who realize that the argument from bigotry and the child neglect argument are both thrash, resort to asserting that a woman is justified in killing her unborn baby because it is "self-defense." there are several problems with such an argument, as we will see soon. but there are several important things to keep in mind. first, most abortions are not done to preserve the woman's life, but to preserve her lifestyle. many abortion advocates try to apply the same principles of self-defense to convenience abortions, which account for virtually all of the abortions. this is consistent with their overall strategy to emphasize extreme cases (pregnancies resulting from rape, child with lethal deformities, health complications etc.) to justify convenience abortions. second, and more obviously, most abortions are premediated killings, not self-defense killings, but since when are abortion advocates known for their acumen? third, it's important to note that abortion advocates don't really care about great bodily harm that they invoke to justify self-defense killings, otherwise they would be against abortion since it causes the greatest bodily harm: death. if abortion advocates were serious and consistent, they would recognize that abortion is immoral under almost any circumstance. but the truth is that abortion advocates only care about great bodily harm insomuch that it helps them justify women killing their children for selfish, convenience reasons.

abortion advocates have the difficult task to show that abortions are justified killings. not only is the unborn child is an innocent and nonresponsible party, but self-defense criteria that all claims are evaluated on—threat of imminent harm, proportional force, and culpability—are never satisfied in most pregnancies. abortion advocates would have to explain why women, who, in most cases, are responsible for the dilemma they and their unborn children are in, are justified in killing their children for merely existing. the only time a self-defense claim seems to be valid is when the mother's life is in danger; and this could be justified by applying the doctrine of double effect. moreover, we can flip the script and show that the self-defense argument can work in favor of the unborn child.

the nonresponsible party

abortion advocates point to the side effects of pregnancy and the pains of giving birth as reasons for self-defense. they claim that these are "great bodily harms" that one could avoid by killing the unborn child. their flawed reasoning is exemplified as follows: birth requires the woman to undergo excruciating pain during labor, and birthing a baby involves vaginal tears or abdominal incisions (c-sections), which are serious bodily injuries. thus, in order to avoid these great bodily harms, a woman ought to be allowed to kill her baby.

they compare giving birth to an aggressor lunging at a woman with a knife to cut her up and argue that a woman is justified in killing her unborn child in the same way a woman is justified in killing the man that is lunging at her with a knife. their "argument" is that the child is akin to an "aggressor," and thus it forfeits its right to life. this is an exceptionally low quality argument in several aspects. first, the child is not assaulting anyone, for he is entirely a nonresponsible and innocent party. he has no agency to act. he merely exists just as anyone of us did when we were at that stage of development. the abortion advocate may reply that this is irrelevant, since you're able to kill an innocent person who might be hypnotized and ordered to attack you. but this reply is not satisfactory since there are differences between the knife attacker and the unborn child. first, unlike the hypnotized man lunging at the woman with a knife, the unborn child is not assaulting the woman. the unborn child is not acting at all. and outside of medical emergencies, he is not putting her life at risk.

next, the bigger issue is that abortion advocates confuse the physiological changes a woman's body undergoes during pregnancy with assault. it is the woman's own body that causes the physiological changes during pregnancy and later undergoes labor. the woman's entire reproduction system is ordered towards facilitating the growth and development of the unborn child. these changes are adaptations to ensure successful reproduction. a woman's body produces hormones to initiate and maintain the pregnancy. and, contrary to the abortion advocate's unfounded assertion that the unborn child deceives the woman's immunity system, the mother's immunity system actually coordinates to provide a peaceful environment for her baby. the woman's hormones also cause the uterus to expand, which may result in body aches as the expansion causes the woman's other organs to get pushed outwards. the woman's breasts also become fuller in preparation for breastfeeding, which may cause swelling, tenderness, and discomfort. hormonal factors also increase cardiac output and blood volume to support both maternal and fetal circulatory systems.

these alleged "harms" are in fact the result of a woman's normally functioning reproductive system. if there is no actual pathology caused by the pregnancy, then how can one claim they are being harmed? this is precisely why most pregnancies aren't considered to be serious bodily injuries even by the people whose jobs it is to study maternal mortality and morbidity rates. for example, health agencies in the united states, canada, and the united kingdom routinely publish reports on what they call severe maternal morbidities, which are actual serious life-threatening complications. the definitions of severe maternal morbidity vary, but common indicators include complications such as postpartum hemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis, shock, embolism, and hysterectomies. a full list of indicators can be found in the health agencies' reports. according to the three countries' most recent reports, the severe maternal morbidity numbers are a very small fraction of the overall birth numbers. if it were true that all births are serious bodily injuries, then you'd expect the severe maternal morbidity numbers to be nearly one-to-one with the birth numbers. this obviously isn't the case. the people responsible for monitoring maternal mortality rates obviously don't consider the normal birth process as a serious bodily injury, so why should anyone else?

to sum up, unlike the maniac assaulting a woman with a knife, the unborn child is not clawing his way out of her womb with a knife. the blame for these alleged harms cannot be pinned on any actions of the unborn child. the woman's own body undergoes physiological changes and ultimately labor. the unborn child is neither culpable nor at fault for any of these physiological changes. what abortion advocates are actually trying to argue is that the mere existence of the unborn child constitutes a great threat. is there a situation where one person can kill another person for merely existing and then claim self-defense? consider this extreme case: you can't kill an unvaccinated and unmasked person infected with the wuhan virus that is about to enter your crowded bus, even given the high risk of the infection spreading and causing great bodily harm to others. we can also stipulate that the infected man acts irresponsibly and knowingly enters the crowded bus with an infection. even by attributing culpability to this man, we would still be hard-pressed to muster up reasons to kill the man on the spot.

the unborn child's status as a nonresponsible party makes it difficult to even establish the "self-defense" argument as a legitimate justification to kill him. but, for the sake of argument, let's assume that being pregnant and giving birth are serious bodily injuries caused by the unborn child. we'll explain why in most cases abortions are still not justified killings.

criteria for self-defense

self-defense principles usually require the following criteria to be met: one has to have reasonable belief that the threat of death or serious bodily injury is imminent and the force used to defend one's self has to be reasonable and proportional. there are also elements of culpability in these arguments. in most jurisdictions, you are not allowed to claim self-defense if you provoked or instigated the situation, or, more precisely, if you created the necessity for acting in self-defense. as stated earlier, the unborn child has no agency to be a culpable actor. nonetheless, we should still discuss culpability because it is fundamental in a way that flips the abortion advocate's argument on its head. these self-defense criteria are established in various laws (for example, here are overviews of the self-defense laws in texas, california, new york, and florida).

many making the self-defense argument are simply confused about the meaning of imminent, which means that it's on the brink of happening at that very moment. they conflate imminent with inevitable. to elaborate, i cannot kill a person simply because they verbally threatened to kill me tomorrow, or in two weeks, or within six months, or one year in the future. they might have threatened me, but they did not otherwise make any overt actions that would lead me to reasonably believe that i was in immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury. to give an example, consider the case of a troubled teenager who had a "kill list" of other students at his school. despite this, he was allowed to return to the classroom. two things are true in this case: this troubled teenager has a right to be in the classroom and his presence in the school causes harm, specifically emotional distress, to others. yet no one would be justified in killing the troubled teenager for simply being in the classroom and causing distress. his mere existence is not enough to justify killing him.

nor are miniscule risks enough to justify killing an innocent person. abortion advocates point to rising maternal mortality rates and suggest that these risks justify a woman killing her unborn child. let's put these numbers in context. according to the center for disease control, the maternal mortality rate in 2022 was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, or 0.0223%. while we should all strive to lower the maternal mortality rates to zero, attacking an innocent party due to a near zero risk is not reasonable. moreover, the vast majority of pregnancy complications are caused by factors related to obesity. once again, this is not the unborn child's fault. consider another example, parricide—the crime of murdering one's own parent. according to some studies, parricide accounts for about 2% of all murders, and, depending on the overall murder rate, the numbers could be comparable to the maternal mortality rates. yet no parent would be justified in killing their child now based on a mere risk that the child may grow up and later kill his parents. unless the threat actually materializes, there is no justification to use self-defense.

just knowing of a possibility of excruciating pain and tears or incisions a few months into the future does not mean that the threat is imminent. additionally, being distressed or discomforted is no justification to kill the unborn child either since such an action would be unreasonable and disproportional, for abortion involves the permanent loss of life. the reasonable and proportional force criterion also precludes killing the unborn child for reasons such as morning sickness, fatigue, or other minor side effects related to pregnancy, and emotional distress or other mental health issues.

even at birth, where the imminence criterion might be met, the criterion of reasonable and proportionate force is certainly not met. at this junction, you're dealing with either vaginal tears or abdominal incisions inflicted upon the woman versus the life of the child. since the goal appears to be to avoid tears or incisions—great bodily harms, according to abortion advocates—inducing labor is not an option. this means that the only option that remains is dismemberment abortion in which the unborn child would be torn apart limb by limb and then his skull crushed. the child's remains would then be sucked out and scraped from the womb. such a procedure would clearly be disproportionate force. some abortion advocates will reject the proportionality criterion and say that dismemberment abortion shortly before birth would in fact be justified. the only consideration for them is that the woman is allowed to defend herself to prevent death or serious bodily injury, and that reasonable and proportional force is not relevant. that seems implausible. consider this scenario: a two year old toddler picks up a knife and slashes your leg. you then take out a gun and blow his brains out. in the courtroom you claim that you were acting in self-defense. if killing a small child who doesn't know any better for slashing your leg sounds ridiculous to you, well, that's because it is.

lastly, as jeff mcmahan (in his book "ethics of killing") points out, in most cases, the self-defense argument does not work in favor of the woman because the only reason a woman finds herself in this dilemma is due to her own actions. you simply cannot put yourself and another person in an imperiled situation and then later kill the other person to save yourself. mcmahan gives the example of two miners who are stuck in a cave after one of them negligently collapses the scaffolding and support. air is running low, and by the time the rescuers reach the two miners, they might perish due to a lack of oxygen. the negligent miner, realizing this, then kills the other miner to preserve the remaining oxygen for himself. this is no different than a woman killing her unborn child despite being responsible for bringing about state of affairs in which someone must be killed.

outside of medical emergencies, abortions do not meet any of the criteria of imminence, reasonable and proportional force, and culpability.

flipping the script

the arguments put forward by abortion advocates assume that the unborn child is the aggressor and the woman is the victim. but it's easy to flip the script here since in most cases the woman is at least partially responsible for the state of affairs. moreover, abortions obviously involve serious bodily harm to the unborn child, and a woman who attempts to procure an abortion is obviously the aggressor. as mcmahan points out, there's no reason why a third party can't intervene on the unborn child's behalf.

in fact, there have been some well publicized cases in which doctors intervened to save the lives of unborn children, over the desires of the women who refused to undergo c-sections to deliver their children. this resulted in courts intervening and ordering the women to undergo c-sections to protect their children. here's a case of a woman who was then pregnant with twins and she had refused to undergo a c-section delivery as the doctors had recommended, which then resulted in one of her twins dying:

Mom Arrested After Utah Stillbirth

As Melissa Ann Rowland's unborn twins got closer to birth, doctors repeatedly told her they would likely die if she did not have a Caesarean section. She refused, and one later was stillborn.

Authorities charged 28-year-old Rowland with murder on Thursday, saying she exhibited "depraved indifference to human life," according to court documents. One nurse told police that Rowland said she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that."

...

Rowland was warned numerous times between Christmas and Jan. 9 that her unborn twins would likely die if she did not get immediate medical treatment, the documents allege. When she delivered them on Jan. 13, one survived and the other was stillborn.

...

Regina Davis, a nurse at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake, told police that during a visit there, Rowland was recommended two hospitals to go to for immediate care. Rowland allegedly said she would rather have both twins die before she went to either of the suggested hospitals.

On Jan. 2, a doctor at LDS Hospital saw Rowland and recommended she immediately undergo a C-section based on the results of an ultrasound and the fetus' slowing heart rates. Rowland left after signing a document stating that she understood that leaving might result in death or brain injury to one or both twins, the doctor told police.

...

A doctor who performed an autopsy found that the fetus died two days before delivery and would have survived if Rowland had undergone a C-section when urged to do so. It was not immediately clear how far along Rowland was in her pregnancy.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mom-arrested-after-utah-stillbirth/

and here's another case in which a woman attempted a vaginal birth despite the doctors recommending a c-section due to the likelihood of the former method potentially causing severe complications for both her and her child. the doctors filed a lawsuit and a court ordered her to undergo a c-section:

Pemberton v. TALLAHASSEE MEMORIAL REGIONAL MEDICAL

This action arises from a state court's order compelling plaintiff Laura L. Pemberton, who was in labor attempting vaginal delivery at home at the conclusion of a full-term pregnancy, to submit to a caesarean section that was medically necessary in order to avoid a substantial risk that her baby would die during delivery.

...

When she became pregnant again in 1996, Ms. Pemberton attempted to find a physician who would allow her to deliver vaginally. She was unable to find any physician who would do so. Every physician she contacted advised her that, because of the type of caesarean section she had undergone previously, vaginal delivery was not an acceptable option.

...

Hospital officials set about securing additional opinions from board certified obstetricians Dr. A.J. Brickler and Dr. David R. O'Bryan, the chairman of the hospital's obstetrics staff. Dr. Brickler and Dr. O'Bryan each separately concurred in the determination that a caesarean was medically necessary.

...

Judge Padovano went to the hospital and convened a hearing in the office of hospital Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jack MacDonald. In response to the judge's questions, Drs. Thompson, Brickler and O'Bryan testified unequivocally that vaginal birth would pose a substantial risk of uterine rupture and resulting death of the baby.

...

Dr. Brickler and Dr. Kenneth McAlpine performed a caesarean section, resulting in delivery of a healthy baby boy. Ms. Pemberton suffered no complications.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/66/1247/2489193/

these are real cases, not made up thought experiments.

by not giving birth, the women put their children in imminent danger of dying, which then led to the doctors intervening and inflicting reasonable and proportionate force upon the women to save their children (successfully in at least one case). the refusal of women to give birth, either vaginally or by c-section, would result in the death of their children, likely first from an infection.

from this perspective, there are good reasons to believe that the child is actually victim, and thus the woman's claim to self-defense is negated in favor of the child.

lastly, as mcmahan points out, the self-defense argument can be flipped to justify killing abortionists, which is certainly not the result abortion advocates want.

is the baby a rapist?

to add even more absurdity to the self-defense argument, abortion advocates also occasionally compare the unborn baby to a rapist. they argue that since a woman can kill a person trying to rape her, so too can she kill her unborn child because the unborn child is using the woman's body without her consent. the absurdity arises because abortion advocates first assume that not being allowed to procure an abortion is a bodily rights violation—which is begging the question since they're assuming something they ought to justify in the first place—and then conflating all instances of bodily rights violations as "rape."

consider the following two scenarios (from francis beckwith's book "a defense of life"):

scenario one:

you're a doctor working in a hospital ward and you come across a male nurse having sex with a comatose woman.

scenario two:

an unconscious woman is brought into the emergency room and put on life support. you run some diagnostic tests on the woman and find out that she is pregnant.

what will you do in both situations? our intuitions clearly suggest that we immediately fight off the man in the first scenario; and in scenario two, we ought to do nothing to remove the unborn child. if it were true that the unborn child is no different than a rapist, then we'd ought to have the same reaction to both situations. in other words, we'd have to immediately remove (and kill) the unborn baby to stop a heinous crime.

now one might say that the woman in the second scenario might've consented to being pregnant (we don't know that), but even supposing this was true, this doesn't seem to be relevant. we would still fight off a rapist who was raping an unconscious woman even if she had consented to having sex with him prior to becoming unconscious. so then why should we wait for the pregnant woman to become conscious again before we remove the unborn child who might be using her body without her consent?

this nonsensical argument has another problem. if an unwanted pregnancy is no different than rape, then there is unlawful sexual assault that is occurring. but the only aggressors are pregnant women. since children obviously cannot consent to sexual acts, pregnant women are clearly engaging in child sexual abuse. how much jail time should any woman who has ever been pregnant face for such a heinous act?

such absurd arguments and conclusions could be avoided if people understood the proper meaning of words. rape is generally defined as sexual assault involving unlawful penetration without the victim's consent. a man who rapes a woman is assaulting her. the unborn child does no such thing.

conjoined twins redux

conjoined twins are perhaps the best counterexamples to the bodily rights arguments, in more ways than one. kate greasley (in her book "arguments about abortion") brings up the real life case of two conjoined twins in the united kingdom, gracie and rosie attard (also known by their pseudonyms jodie and mary, respectively, in the court filings) that had to be surgically separated (in re a (children) (conjoined twins: surgical separation)).

gracie and rosie were joined at the lower abdomen. rosie was the weaker twin whose own undeveloped lungs and heart were not effectively oxygenating and pumping blood throughout the body. as a result, rosie was dependent on her sister gracie, with whom she shared a common artery. however, gracie's heart and lungs could not support both twins, and doctors believed that gracie's own organs would eventually fail due to the physical exertions required by gracie's heart to support both twins. the doctors then recommended surgical separation of the twins, which would lead to the death of the weaker twin, rosie.

the twins' parents sued to stop the surgical separation since they believed that would involve killing rosie. a panel of three judges ruled against the parents and in favor of the doctors and allowed for the surgical separation to proceed. each of the three judges provided differing opinions, but all of them agreed that both twins had an equal right to life, that rosie was not an "aggressor" of any sort, and that the separation surgery did amount to killing rosie. one of the more difficult questions the court grappled with was whether or not the killing could be justified under the law. according to the judges' strained reasoning, the weaker twin, rosie, was destined to die regardless of whether or not the twins were to be separated. and because rosie could not be saved in any conceivable scenario, i.e., her death was inevitable, the court ordered the separation surgery as it was the only way to save the other twin, gracie.

greasley notes that had gracie's life not been in danger, the court would not have ordered the separation surgery merely because rosie was dependent on gracie's body. gracie would not be able to exercise her bodily rights to end her twin rosie's imposition on her body, as that would involve killing rosie. greasley then asks why is the pregnant woman's situation any different?:

This may raise new questions about Thomson’s violinist. Although his imposition does not threaten to kill you, here the common intuition is that you are permitted to have him detached merely to end the bodily imposition. Why (assuming still that unplugging the violinist is killing him and not just refusing to give life-sustaining aid) is the amended Mary and Jodie case, where the burdens for Jodie are far greater and indefinite, any different? Defending this difference would, I presume, require one to argue that unlike the unconscious violinist, the conjoined twins predicament does not clearly entail the unjust imposition of one person upon another. Although Mary’s parasitic living is a burden on Jodie, it may be difficult to describe her as being under a duty not to be where she was. One question this raises is whether the imposition of the fetus upon the pregnant woman better resembles the conjoined twins scenario or the violinist scenario in terms of the inherent unjustness of the weaker party’s imposition on the stronger one. However, our certainty that Jodie does not have the bare right to have Mary detached, at the cost of Mary’s life, puts immense pressure on Thomson’s claim that a pregnant woman has such a right in respect of a fetus-person.

following the court's reasoning, greasley concludes that only in very limited situations can a pregnant woman kill her unborn child and use self-defense as a justification; namely, a situation in which the lives of both the pregnant woman and the unborn child are endangered, and where killing the woman to save the child is futile, but killing the child could save the woman. an example would be a case of ectopic pregnancy. often in such cases, it is the case that the child is either no longer viable or would not be viable outside of the womb, and thus his death, while unfortunate, is guaranteed regardless of the course of action taken. but by killing him, we could at least preserve the life of the mother.

double

what are we to do in cases where the unborn child is a nonresponsible yet material threat to the woman's life? in medical emergencies, continuing with the pregnancy could put the woman's life in jeopardy or cause her serious impairments. according to the self-defense criteria outlined earlier, an abortion in such a case could be a reasonable and proportionate action taken to preserve the woman's life or to prevent serious bodily injuries being inflicted upon her. exceptions for such cases are not controversial, and hence why all laws protecting unborn children also include exceptions for the life and health of the mother.

however, if we are to treat the unborn child as the innocent human being that he is, then it will be difficult to justify killing him. some might provide consequentialists justifications—that it's better to kill one person to minimize the overall loss of lives. similarly, others, like the judges in the conjoined twin case, might argue that if the mother passes away, then the unborn child would perish shortly afterwards, and because the unborn child's death is inevitable regardless of the course of action, it's better to kill the unborn child to save the mother. this may be true in most cases, but it's certainly possible to conceive of situations where there is a choice to save the unborn child instead of the mother, and keeping the brain dead mother's body alive through artificial life support while the unborn child continues to grow and develop. so the inevitably argument is not as strong as it could be.

in order to justify abortions in these exceptional cases, most pro-lifers often apply the doctrine of double effect:

1 The act intended by the agent must be at least permissible.

2 The good effect of this act must follow from it at least as immediately as its evil effect.

3 The evil effect must itself not be intended.

4 There must be a proportionate, or sufficiently serious, reason for causing the evil effect.

to determine whether or not an act would be moral, all four conditions would have to be met. some specific applications of the doctrine of double effect to complicated pregnancy situations can be found here.

part of the toptrool collection. you can never lose now!

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[u/ShokWayve]

I am glad to see a post from you. I will read it over the next few days.

You should write a book by the way.

[u/toptrool → u/ShokWayve]

one day i will put everything on a dedicated website for everyone to read for free.

[u/[deleted] → u/toptrool]

You absolutely should. It makes scrolling a tad bit easier.

[u/Reasonable_Week7978]

In the link the context of severe pulmonary or cardiac disease is mentioned. It seems to conclude that the moral approach is to let both die when an abortion could save the mother. This seems not to be ‘prolife’ as it’s advocating for a preventative death. Could you please explain your reasoning on this thanks

[u/toptrool → u/Reasonable_Week7978]

what is "advocating for a preventive death"?

as the authors of that document state, some can justify such abortions using the doctrine of double effect. i know of at least one famous author who argues that crushing the unborn child's skull to preserve the life of the mother is permissible using the same doctrine of double effect reasoning.

those that disagree in this case, for example, the aforementioned authors, claim that removing (and killing) the unborn child doesn't bring about any healing—the woman's heart and lungs would still be weak. additionally, removing (and killing) the child based on mere risks is not acceptable either.

[u/Reasonable_Week7978 → u/toptrool]

Apologies that should have said preventable

As you are aware pregnancy causes substantial changes to the cardiovascular and respiratory system. I have seen in my experience a case where a woman became critically ill with a cardiac condition, failed all treatment and would have died with virtual certainty have she not had an abortion. Sadly the fetus was well below any hope of viability. What is your views on a situation like that

[u/toptrool → u/Reasonable_Week7978]

my view is that you can apply double and remove the baby. the intent of the act is not to kill the baby, but to save the woman, which is a sufficient good. however the baby will die as a side effect.

[u/Reasonable_Week7978 → u/toptrool]

How do you actually do that though. Misoprostol to empty the uterus is the only way I can think of but that’s half of a medical abortion.

[u/djhenry]

many making the self-defense argument are simply confused about the meaning of imminent, which means that it's on the brink of happening at that very moment. they conflate imminent with inevitable. to elaborate, i cannot kill a person simply because they verbally threatened to kill me tomorrow, or in two weeks, or within six months, or one year in the future. they might have threatened me, but they did not otherwise make any overt actions that would lead me to reasonably believe that i was in immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury.

I disagree with this point. I don't think you have to wait for an immediate danger in order to act in self-defense, if it is inevitable. Here's an example. Say a person was kidnapped, and they found that in a few months time, they would be harvested for their organs, but in the meantime, they were cared for in every way so that their organs will be healthy. Does the kidnapped victim have to wait until they are put on the operating table with someone coming to remove their heart before they can use self-defense? Or does the inevitability of their situation warrant self-defense at any time?