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#that fetus is not less of a person than the mother

catholic-on-main · 4 months

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Hot Truths About Personhood, part 2 Personhood is not a sliding spectrum! No human being can be more or less of a person than any other human being! <3

#that criminal is as much a person as an innocent #that fetus is not less of a person than the mother #someone with limited mental or physical abilities are of equal personhood as any able-bodied human #pro-life

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bluerthanvelvet444 · 23 days

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ᯓ★⋆˚🅰🅿🆁🅸🅲🅸🆃🆈⋆｡˚ ⁀➷

(Peter Maximoff x fem!reader)

tags: smut with plot and a bit of fluff in the end.

warnings: subby!Peter, restraints, handjob, fingering, riding, p in v, denied orgasm, praise, mentions of abuse, mentions of alcohol, mentions of fight, swearing.

summary: Peter gets captured by the villains. This fic takes place after x-men apocalypse and before x-men dark phoenix.

character count: 19k.

full fic under the cut ↓

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Memoir. What’s its provenance? What is it?

According to scientists, memories are “formed as a result of connections between neurons in the brain”. The poet Sylvia Plath, instead, “sardonically embraced the most horrific and vulgar fragments from the storehouse of collective memory”. The great philosopher Aristotle believed that “memory is like a writing that remains etched in wax, and whose inscriptions remain more or less durable”.

Although you continually researched and seeked in books for the perfect depiction, you weren’t able to find anything that could comply with your personal belief. You were staunch that memories are, in fact, the mirror of our being. Disgraceful memories, glorious ones…they’re both needed to construct the way we act, the way we think, and the way we are. You had always been involved in memoir personally, because of your quirk. You had the marvelous capacity of intruding into one’s memories. You couldn’t directly change or interact with them, instead, you could see, reproduce, assimilate and mimic them. Phenomenal, isn’t it? You may think it is but, your biggest gift to you was, in fact, your biggest ruin. Your life started its downgrade the exact moment you found out about it. You remembered it all.

You were standing small in front of your mother, who had either fallen asleep or passed out. The bottle of cheap tequila in her hands made both answers valid. You were just a kid but you knew it wasn’t easy. Your father had left when you were just a fetus in your mother’s womb. Since then, she had never been the same. All the bills, the rent, expenses were on her. Her job exhausted her and the little time she had left, she spent drowning her worries in alcohol. She didn’t need any more problems, so you never told her about that awkward energy growing inside of you. That particular day you felt it bigger than ever, the need to find out what it led to even stronger. So you put your tiny fingers on her temples, as the little voice in your head told you to, and you started seeing. All of your mother's life was flashing in front of your eyes quickly. You stopped at one particular memory, you inspected it. Your mother stood pregnant in front of a man that kept yelling at her. You put the pieces of the puzzles together. It was clear, and the new knowledge of the situation triggered something inside of you, inside of your power. You kept replaying and replaying the scene, tears in your eyes, as the man’s words dissolved from the memory and came directly out of your mouth. That woke your mother up, she was holding her head as the same image kept banging in her mind, and as the man’s voice spit those known words harshly from your little mouth. She yelled for you to stop, and you lowkey wish you never did. As soon as you stopped, she grabbed you and threw you inside of-what you playfully called-the dark room, your basement.

“I-I’m sorry…I can’t-you’re him…I-I see him-” Her words came out broken from her mouth, her sobs stopping her mid-sentence as she locked you inside.

That became a habit since then. You grew up in the “dark room”, hardly ever going outside if not to eat and respond to natural calls. Your main activity was watching TV and day-dreaming about the outside world. You knew it was better than what you were living, it had to be. Especially because you found out that you weren’t crazy or evil but that you simply belonged to a different species. They called them mutants.And apparently, there was a school for kids just like you, the interviews of the famous Charles Xavier were the ones you liked watching the most on TV. As the years went by, your urge to run away grew more and more, and so you did. One day in the early 70s, you grabbed all of your things and left, taking advantage of your mom’s blackout. You took different taxis and avoided the questions about your young age, and you were finally standing in front of Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Although, it seemed different from what you saw on TV: it looked abandoned, the plate with the name on it rusty and absentmindedly resting on the ground, and the gates closed. You tried peeking inside, before being startled by an unfamiliar voice behind you.

“Don’t waste your time. They can’t help you anymore, but we can.”

This is how you found yourself with a group of mutants who had the exact same hopes you had, before they were broken by the closure of the school. You were guided by The Captain-that is how he wanted to be called-that was trying to create a new safe place for young mutants. And his plan seemed to work, kid mutants were actually starting to come…before Xavier’s school opened again. At this point, your group desperately found itself in front of the school’s gate again. You were dismissed,though, by a blue beast mutant.

“We’re sorry, the school only accepts young kids between 5 and 17-” He told you before turning his back.

“You can try and talk to Charles though, I’m sure he will find some space for y-'' He stopped seeing you had all left.

This is why The Captain’s plan was ever created in the first place. He believed that Charles Xavier was a man only drawn by his personal needs, and that he only used the young mutants to gain popularity and be idolized by the US government.

“This is why we were rejected. Our powers aren’t conventionally pleasing. No human kid would ever desire our powers. So if he believes our gifts can’t be used for good, we won’t use them for good.” He spoke firmly to you all.

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Your flow of memories was interrupted by The Captain.

“We’ve captured one. You will watch him while we take care of the others. Do your thing on him and find out his weakness.” He spoke with a deep voice.

You nodded and began making your way downstairs before he gripped your wrist.

“Don’t disappoint me, Y/N.” You felt his piercing gaze in your eyes.

“I won’t.” You gulped and quickly left the room.

When you opened the door you scanned your surroundings. The room was all white, with petty furniture. No windows, a table, a chair, a small closet, and a bed which had a figure laying down on it. You inched closer and scanned the boy. His eyes closed, he was probably knocked out, a few bruises on his skin, his hands and legs restrained by the strong collars around them… he looked your age, his hair was silver with some goggles resting on them. He had a pleasant face to look at, if the circumstances had been different you could’ve even admitted that he was pretty attractive. He was wearing a black protective suit, probably X-men’s equipment, you guessed. The more you observed him, the more you were confused. You expected them to capture the great Mystique, the glorious Magneto…not a newbie. You sighed and started walking towards the desk, ramaging in your bag for a sleeping pill so that you could do your magic without being interrupted.

Peter slowly opened his eyes, he could feel his body sore from the previous fight. He started to panic as he didn’t recognize his surroundings. He tilted his head forwards, noticing the person standing in front of the desk.

“H-hey…! Ppsttttt…Lady! Yes! You! Lady!” You heard his desperate calls.

You walked towards him and stopped at the side of the bed.

“Hi! So there’s a bunch of bad people who captured me and probably want to beat my ass-” You stopped him mid-sentence.

“I know.” You replied with a monotone voice.

“You-you know?! Don’t tell me you’re one of ‘em- oh shit! You’re one of ‘em! C’mon you have to be kiddin’ me…you’re too pretty to be mean! Hey! C’mon help me!” He rushed, his hands and legs squirming at high speeds against the restraints. You didn’t budge at his compliment, instead, you were focused on his movements.

“A speedster, huh.” You mumbled.

“A speed…A speedster?! Babe I'm not a speedster- I’m the speedster! Quicksilver! Peter Maximoff! The one and only!” He replied cockily, almost as if he was offended by your lack of knowledge. You raised your eyebrow, clearly having no clue of who he was.

“Aah babe you’ve got to be kiddin’ me! I’m Quicksilver! The one who beated Apocalypse’s ass! I did it all myself heh- I’m basically a hero, everyone loves me. Don’t ya watch TV or what?” Even though you had no idea who this guy was and what he did to be part of the X-men, you could sense the exaggeration in his words.

“I prefer books.” You shrugged before turning your back and making your way to the desk again.

“Hey! Hey! Where ya goin’?! Are ya a mutant too? Hey, yer not gonna hurt me aren’t ya?! What’s your power? C’mon tell me…What’s your power? Whaddaya do?!”

You rolled your eyes as his continuous questions started to annoy you.

“Will you shut up and let me do what I need to do?!” You snapped while holding between your thumb and index the sleeping pill. His pupils dilated.

“Whoa-whoa…let’s chill down a bit, yea? No need to use that, babe. Ya just gotta ask and I'll do whatever you want me to do.” He said with a smirk forming on his face. You sighed.

“Close your eyes and stay still.” You began pressing your fingers against his temples.

“...Will it hurt?” He said with a nervous smile, big brown eyes looking up at you.

“It doesn’t have to.”

Just like that you were thrown into Peter’s memories. You saw his child self, his mom, his sister…his first time using his powers…Magneto…many memories about Magneto, weird. You decided to dig a little deeper. You replayed the memory where he found out that…

“Magneto is your father?!” You exclaimed, visibly surprised.

“Hehe, I guess…so that’s your power?” He said with a tiny chuckle.

You kept thinking about what you just saw. You never saw a direct contact between Peter and Magneto, so you supposed he didn’t know about his son. That could’ve easily been used against him, you had to tell The Captain. You walked towards the table and gathered your bag.

“That’s a cool power…I’ve never heard ‘bout it. Actually, I’ve never heard ‘bout ya either…do ya have a supervillain name? Why didn’t ya fight with the others?” The words fell rapidly out of his lips. You gulped.

“Just Y/N. I don’t fight with the others. My powers weren’t made for physical combat.” That’s true, they hardly ever let you come with them on missions. You were useless for superheroes as much as you were for supervillains.

“Pffffttt…that’s bullshit! Ya can do those cool things with yer mind! Ya totally have to meet Charles, he’s gott-”

“Charles? Charles’s a selfish man who puts his needs first. I don’t want anything from him.” You scoffed.

“Wha-what? Are ya out of yer mind? Have ya ever even met Charles? He’s the coolest. I was literally a loser who lived in his mom’s basement before meeting him. Always been cool though.” His words made your blood boil, hearing that he didn’t hesitate to help him but discarded you immediately. You told Peter your story, how you truly believed Charles was gonna save you but ended up breaking your inner child’s heart. Your eyes started to water as memories flooded in front of your eyes.

“Hey-I-I’m sorry that happened to ya but- hey- if I get outta here alive, I promise I will take you to the school. The professor will help ya, he always does.” You looked at him, a tiny glimmer of hope appearing in your eyes even though you knew that you couldn’t leave.

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You spent all your day talking to him. He was funny, you had to admit. The nicest company you had ever had. He told you about his family, how he joined the X-men, everything. And before you knew it, the night came.

“Oh uhm. You should get some sleep, you’re probably exhausted.” You said while getting up, ready to leave.

“Wait- uhhh…I can’t really sleep with this armor thingy on. It’s uncomfy.” He complained.

“Oh. Right, I can bring you some clothes. But I…can’t untie you. It’s the rules.” You shrugged.

“No need to. I usually sleep naked.” He winked at you.

“...” You contorted your face, not really knowing how to respond.

“HA! Gotcha. Just kidding. I sleep in my boxers.” He said with a proud grin on his lips.

“...I’ll bring you clothes.” You said before being interrupted again.

“No! Seriously, I just need to take my clothes off.”

You raised your eyebrow.

“...Not because I’m a creep. Simply because my speed speeds my body’s functions, and by speeding it highs my temperature so I get hot.” He spoke as if it was obvious.

“...Right.” You sighed and sat on the edge of the bed.

“How does this thing open?”

“W-whoa whoa…you-are you gonn- wait-” He stuttered as his cheeks slightly reddened.

“You said you wanted your clothes off, and I’m not gonna risk getting scolded by The Captain by freeing you.” You sighed. He gulped and pointed where his zipper was.

C’mon Peter…ya can do this, buddy. Ya just need to focus, yea? Don’t let a fine chick undressing ya speed yer speedy hormones, mh? Peter thought to himself. Your hands gripped the zipper and started pulling it down. Stay focused soldier. His broad chest was revealed as you slowly undressed him. You stopped at his abs to hop on the bed and take his shoes off. As you leaned to pull his boots, your arm slightly brushed his crotch. Holy fucking mother of all the fucking mutants, fuck. She barely touched ya and yer already growing hard, Peter? Must be tha speedy genes, yea, has to be. Totally not has nothing to do with ya being a virgin in your 20s. Nuh-uh. Goddamn you, Peter!

You threw his shoes on the floor, and started pulling his suit down again. You let your gaze linger as he was half-naked in front of you. He was wearing boxers with lightning bolts on them, a tiny chuckle escaped your mouth at that.

“Someone’s excited.” You said with a playful grin on your lips as you pointed at the prominent bulge in his boxers.

“Hey! Not my fault ya got all handsy- how did ya expect me to react?” He said with a tiny blush on his cheeks, he was so cute.

“...And it’s the speedster genes, by tha way. They call me Quickie for a reason.” He replied, annoyed because of how embarrassed he got.

“Do you need help?” You suggested. It may have been wrong, since you were “enemies” and you barely knew each other but…when are you gonna have another cute speedster all for you again?

“DoIneedawhat-” He blurted out, not believing what he just heard.

Your lips curled up in a smirk, and before he could process anything, your fingers grazed his crotch through his underwear.

“Oh- fuck- yea…yes-” He moaned, you giggled.

“So eager, mh?” You teased him by pulling his waistband up and then leaving it smack against his skin. He groaned and nodded, he was so worked up by nothing. You undressed him of his boxers too, his shaft springing free against his stomach, leaving him naked on the bed. His hips bucked up in search of friction. You grinned and gently took his dick in your hand, slowly pumping it.

“Aaah…f-f-yes…please…faster…” He whined.

You giggled and leaned in to kiss his lips gently, muffling his pleas. You started speeding your movements, and he deepened the kiss as his moans rolled off his tongue. As you made out, you could hear the sound of his hands desperately squirming against the restraints.

“Please…let me touch you…” He whimpered, big puppy eyes gazing up at you.

“Mh…sorry, can’t do, baby. It’s the rules.” You smirked and leaned in to peck his lips again. You stopped and sat up to pull off your shirt. He groaned at the sight. You took him in your hands again and fasted your pace even more.

“O-oh..f-fuck...gonna…gonna cum babe…c-cant hold it in…ahh..” You giggled and sped up even more, your mouth working hungrily against his, eating up his moans. He came with a loud groan, muffled by your lips. He kept whining after that.

“Pleasepleaseplease…wanna please ya too…lemme…I’m good at it- I promise…I’m basically a human vibrator-long lasting rose toy- please…” You giggled and nodded, pecking his lips. You took off your pants, before untying one of his hands. He groaned and immediately pulled you closer, his hand making its way under your panties. He suppressed a moan by biting his lip as he felt your slick with his fingers. He gently started circling your clit, and after he heard a few moans of confirmation from you, he began buzzing his fingers against it.

“Ooh…f-fuck…just like that, baby, don’t stop…” You moaned, he answered with a cute whine. He looked up at you, his middle finger gently pushing at your entrance, not fully sliding in. You nodded and bit your lip to suppress any more unholy sound coming out of you as his fingers started to fuck you slowly.

“F-fuck…” You threw your head back. He was gazing up at you with parted lips, as if he had never seen something so breathtaking. He kept picking up the pace, until you stopped his wrist and tied it up again.

“Wha-Wait-Why..? Y-you didn’t like it?” He said with his silver brows furrowed, he was lost and scared of what your answer could’ve been.

“Oh, it was fucking awesome, baby. But I wanna use something else to come, yea? Will you let me do that?” You said in a cooing voice, clearly driving his mind crazy.

“Mhm…yesplease…” He nodded, his gaze not daring to leave your body.

You undid your bra, his eyes widening, and straddled his hips. Your entrance just above his cock. He groaned at the sight, his shaft fully hardening again. You smiled and slowly sinked in, until your hips met his.

“Aaah…w-warm…so warm n’tight…mppph…” He moaned loudly.

You grinned and started slowly sliding your hips up and down repeatedly, reaching a stable pace. You moaned as you started speeding up, yet it wasn’t enough to satisfy you fully.

“Mhh…baby…mind helping me a little?” You said looking down at him.

He moaned and nodded. He started superspeeding his hips to meet yours as you bounced on his cock. The new sensation making you moan loudly.

“Ohhh! Fuck! Just like that, baby…such a good boy…” You groaned as you felt yourself closer. He let out a tiny whimper as he heard your praise and kept speeding up, his wrists and legs straining against the collars, forming tiny red lines.

“Fuckfuckfuck…can i cum? P-please-ah…?” He whined.

“Mhhh...not yet- baby…let me finish first…” You smirked.

He groaned and sped up even more, trying desperately to bring you to the edge. He hissed as he felt that knot in his stomach urging to snap. It didn’t take much for you to come undone. You cried out as you were still jumping up and down at lightning speed. As soon as he felt you clenching around him, he moaned loudly, as he was just about to cum. You quickly pulled him out of you and allowed him to spatter his fluid on your body. He panted heavily, droplets of sweat sinking from his forehead to the mattress. You waited a few moments before grabbing a towel and cleaning you both. You laid down on the bed with him, moving his head on your chest as you ran your fingers in his silver locks, whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

“You're my apricity.” You said while caressing his hair and pecking his temple. His eyes were closed, and he was clearly drifting off to sleep.

“Mh?” He mumbled, not moving one single part of his body, still restrained.

“Apricity. I read that in a book.” You chuckled.

“In simpler words?” He mumbled.

“The warmth of the sun in winter.”

“In even simpler words?” He muttered, his voice coming muffled by your chest.

“My life is the winter, you are the warmth.” You admitted. He didn't answer to that. You weren't sure if he actually understood the concept or even just your words, but one thing you were a hundred percent sure of.

He fell asleep smiling.

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taglist: @cxndiedvi0lets @angeldollw @marchsfreakshow @newwavesylviaplath @happy74827 @evpeters87

a/n: raaaahh!!! I'm honestly so proud of this, the fic came out just like i imagined. Anyways, hope you like it, love you all🤍🤍

join my taglist!!

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chuunai · 1 month

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Need me some baby daddy fyodor..

baby daddy fyodor ! who knew you were pregnant before you knew. the signs of an expectant mother—much less his wife—were quite obvious and evident to him. morning sickness, tender breasts, all the works.

baby daddy fyodor ! who already has plans in motions to protect his soon-to-be family. naturally, a child of his shall not be targeted by the world’s sinners.

baby daddy fyodor ! who is more lenient and understanding of you. he’s more opt to you sitting on his lap as he works, or making the effort to eat at least one meal a day with you. parenthood is a shared experience, and for however cruel he may be—his cruelness never extends to you. mostly.

baby daddy fyodor ! who quickly finds himself enamored by your growing stomach. the thought that the changes in your body were because of him gave him a sense of pride and gleeful joy. had he not gifted you a child, you’d never go through this. but alas, he has.

baby daddy fyodor ! who sings russian lullabies to the unborn child. either that, or he’d play classical music on his cello. research showed the positive effects of music on a developing fetus, and of course he wanted his kid to have the best start in life. being a dostoevsky meant being miles ahead of the average person.

baby daddy fyodor ! who keeps the news private. other than his servants that had been thoroughly brainwashed and manipulated by him, no one knew about your pregnancy. for both the safety of you and your child. his anemic hands hold the future of the world in one hand, and an ultrasound photo in the other.

baby daddy fyodor ! who says he’ll speak to the baby in russian only. in order to have them fluent, they must hear the language from the moment their curious eyes open. he doesn’t mind whatever language you want to speak to them—it’d be better for them to know multiple languages anyway.

baby daddy fyodor ! who prepares for your eventual labor. being a known terrorist, he obviously can’t have you in a hospital. it’d leave behind plenty of documents and other information that may lead to potential problems. so, a birthing room is in order at a secret location far from the life that he relishes in. he has a doctor on standby—kept hostage for this very purpose—to watch over the process.

baby daddy fyodor ! who can’t wait to walk upon the re-formed world he’ll make with his two angels.

Tags:

@sinfulthoughtsposts, @twst-om-lover, @briars-castle

#bungou stray dogs #bungou gay dogs #aspiring writer #bsd x reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd fluff #bsd tag #fyodor x reader #fyodor dostoyevsky bsd #bungou stray dogs fyodor #bsd fyodor #fyodor dostoevsky #bsd imagines #bsd #baby daddy #established relationship

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walk-the-fade · 3 months

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Coming from DAi, Ive seen so many ppl write their inky as a kid or at youngest 18 bc it changes the dynamic between them and the party...

Has anyone done that/ considered how it would change the relationship with Tav?

Lae'zel being frustrated and terrified that her survival is dependent on a teenager. She's taking orders from someone barely old enough to know their way around life on a good day, but now finding her people and being purified fully hinges on this kid's survival and she will be damned if she doesn't die to protect them.

Wyll sees himself in them, wide eyed and terrified at 17 when he bound himself to a devil and his father cast him out. The gods are cruel for giving children their toughest battles. He's going to give them every piece of advice he has and pledge his blade to their cause.

Gale being even more hesistant to open about The Orb and Mystra and his condition because he thinks it's too much for them. They should be tucked away in a library, they should be walking through Baldur's Gate worried about trinkets and sweets and being home on time so they don't worry their mother... not tasked with saving Faerûn from a cult.

Astarion thinks its annoying at first. "Free" for the first time in 200 years. Illithid tadpole squirming in his head and he's stuck following a literal fetus in hopes of survival. Its laughable. He almost –almost– feels bad about having to feed from them, but young blood is always sweeter. And when they earn his approval he's bitter on their behalf. Forced to be a hero, some beacon of light before you've even explored life and it's simple pleasures? Appalling.

Karlach... oh boy Karlach burns hot when they tell her exactly how old they are. Its stupid- its unfair- ITS BULLSHIT quite honestly. The nickname Soldier becomes so much more. This kid doesn't give up. They can't, Mama K will do everything in her power to stop it. They need a friend in these tough times and shes more than willing to be that person. Gods....

Shadowheart is a little surprised, but she's the one that underestimates them the least, for sure. They're not that much older than when she was taken in by The Dark Lady and her followers. She knows that you become strong when you need to be. It may be unfair but that doesn't make them any less capable as long as they understand the task at hand. She will see to it that they stay on the right path. And when her faith shifts she realizes neither of them deserve to struggle.

As for Halsin, it makes his heart ACHE in his chest when someone so young comes to his rescue. His knee jerk reaction is that they need training, gudiance... protection. But he quickly realizes that's only half true. They are young sure, but they are not helpless. He will help them in anyway that he can whether it be in battle against The Absolute or by carving them little wooden animals while they sleep and leaving them in their tent. They deserve a little happiness amongst the chaos.

Minthara (assuming she has been recruited at Moonrise) is surprised more by the fact that they chose to show her mercy than by their age. Given her upbringing, survival and violence go hand in hand and if this kid has survived this long, faced power of absolute and survived? Than they are worthy of her respect, hands down. She may not always agree with their methods but she will certainly not hesistate to stand beside them.

#i would include jaheira and minsc but i dont know if i have much to say for minsc just bc i havent recruited him yet #teenage tav definitely makes Jaheira feel her fucking age though LMAO #shes been dealing with bhaal for way too fucking long its certainly not a childs job to clean up something shes been trying to fight for #several hundred years #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #tav #tav headcanons #teenage!tav #shadowheart #lae'zel #astarion #astarion ancunin #gale of waterdeep #minthara baenre #the druid halsin #halsin #karlach #wyll ravengard

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femmesandhoney · 4 months

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Here's Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion"

"Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception. The premise is argued for, but, as I think, not well. Take, for example, the most common argument. We are asked to notice that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood is continuous; then it is said that to draw a line, to choose a point in this development and say "before this point the thing is not a person, after this point it is a person" is to make an arbitrary choice, a choice for which in the nature of things no good reason can be given. It is concluded that the fetus is. or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak trees, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called "slippery slope arguments"--the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory--and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.

I am inclined to agree, however, that the prospects for "drawing a line" in the development of the fetus look dim. I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth. Indeed, it comes as a surprise when one first learns how early in its life it begins to acquire human characteristics. By the tenth week, for example, it already has a face, arms and less, fingers and toes; it has internal organs, and brain activity is detectable. On the other hand, I think that the premise is false, that the fetus is not a person from the moment of conception. A newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells, is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. But I shall not discuss any of this. For it seems to me to be of great interest to ask what happens if, for the sake of argument, we allow the premise. How, precisely, are we supposed to get from there to the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible? Opponents of abortion commonly spend most of their time establishing that the fetus is a person, and hardly anytime explaining the step from there to the impermissibility of abortion. Perhaps they think the step too simple and obvious to require much comment. Or perhaps instead they are simply being economical in argument. Many of those who defend abortion rely on the premise that the fetus is not a person, but only a bit of tissue that will become a person at birth; and why pay out more arguments than you have to? Whatever the explanation, I suggest that the step they take is neither easy nor obvious, that it calls for closer examination than it is commonly given, and that when we do give it this closer examination we shall feel inclined to reject it.

I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed.

It sounds plausible. But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.

In this case, of course, you were kidnapped, you didn't volunteer for the operation that plugged the violinist into your kidneys. Can those who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned make an exception for a pregnancy due to rape? Certainly. They can say that persons have a right to life only if they didn't come into existence because of rape; or they can say that all persons have a right to life, but that some have less of a right to life than others, in particular, that those who came into existence because of rape have less. But these statements have a rather unpleasant sound. Surely the question of whether you have a right to life at all, or how much of it you have, shouldn't turn on the question of whether or not you are a product of a rape. And in fact the people who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned do not make this distinction, and hence do not make an exception in case of rape.

Nor do they make an exception for a case in which the mother has to spend the nine months of her pregnancy in bed. They would agree that would be a great pity, and hard on the mother; but all the same, all persons have a right to life, the fetus is a person, and so on. I suspect, in fact, that they would not make an exception for a case in which, miraculously enough, the pregnancy went on for nine years, or even the rest of the mother's life.

Some won't even make an exception for a case in which continuation of the pregnancy is likely to shorten the mother's life, they regard abortion as impermissible even to save the mother's life. Such cases are nowadays very rare, and many opponents of abortion do not accept this extreme view. All the same, it is a good place to begin: a number of points of interest come out in respect to it.

Let us call the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life "the extreme view." I want to suggest first that it does not issue from the argument I mentioned earlier without the addition of some fairly powerful premises. Suppose a woman has become pregnant, and now learns that she has a cardiac condition such that she will die if she carries the baby to term. What may be done for her? The fetus, being to life, but as the mother is a person too, so has she a right to life. Presumably they have an equal right to life. How is it supposed to come out that an abortion may not be performed? If mother and child have an equal right to life, shouldn't we perhaps flip a coin? Or should we add to the mother's right to life her right to decide what happens in and to her body, which everybody seems to be ready to grant--the sum of her rights now outweighing the fetus's right to life?

The most familiar argument here is the following. We are told that performing the abortion would he directly killings the child, whereas doing nothing would not be killing the mother, but only letting her die. Moreover, in killing the child, one would be killing an innocent person, for the child has committed no crime, and is not aiming at his mother's death. And then there are a variety of ways in which this might be continued. (1) But as directly killing an innocent person is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (2) as directly killing an innocent person is murder, and murder is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (3) as one's duty to refrain from directly killing an innocent person is more stringent than one's duty to keep a person from dying, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (4) if one's only options are directly killing an innocent person or letting a person die, one must prefer letting the person die, and thus an abortion may not be performed.

Some people seem to have thought that these are not further premises which must be added if the conclusion is to be reached, but that they follow from the very fact that an innocent person has a right to life. But this seems to me to be a mistake, and perhaps the simplest way to show this is to bring out that while we must certainly grant that innocent persons have a right to life, the theses in (1) through (4) are all false. Take (2), for example. If directly killing an innocent person is murder, and thus is impermissible, then the mother's directly killing the innocent person inside her is murder, and thus is impermissible. But it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot seriously be said that she must refrain, that she must sit passively by and wait for her death. Let us look again at the case of you and the violinist There you are, in bed with the violinist, and the director of the hospital says to you, "It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within the month. But you have to stay where you are all the same. because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and that's murder, and that's impermissible." If anything in the world is true, it is that you do not commit murder, you do not do what is impermissible, if you reach around to your back and unplug yourself from that violinist to save your life.

The main focus of attention in writings on abortion has been on what a third party may or may not do in answer to a request from a woman for an abortion. This is in a way understandable. Things being as they are, there isn't much a woman can safely do to abort herself. So the question asked is what a third party may do, and what the mother may do, if it is mentioned at all, if deduced, almost as an afterthought, from what it is concluded that third parties may do. But it seems to me that to treat the matter in this way is to refuse to grant to the mother that very status of person which is so firmly insisted on for the fetus. For we cannot simply read off what a person may do from what a third party may do. Suppose you filed yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very tiny house, and a rapidly growing child--you are already up against the wall of the house and in a few minutes you'll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand won't be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing he'll be hurt, but in the end he'll simply burst open the house and walk out a free man. Now I could well understand it if a bystander were to say. "There's nothing we can do for you. We cannot choose between your life and his, we cannot be the ones to decide who is to live, we cannot intervene." But it cannot be concluded that you too can do nothing, that you cannot attack it to save your life. However innocent the child may be, you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the right of self-defense. But if the woman houses the child, it should be remembered that she is a person who houses it.

I should perhaps stop to say explicitly that I am not claiming that people have a right to do anything whatever to save their lives. I think, rather, that there are drastic limits to the right of self-defense. If someone threatens you with death unless you torture someone else to death, I think you have not the right, even to save your life, to do so. But the case under consideration here is very different. In our case there are only two people involved, one whose life is threatened, and one who threatens it. Both are innocent: the one who is threatened is not threatened because of any fault, the one who threatens does not threaten because of any fault. For this reason we may feel that we bystanders cannot interfere. But the person threatened can.

In sum, a woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves its death. And this shows not merely that the theses in (1) through (4) are false; it shows also that the extreme view of abortion is false, and so we need not canvass any other possible ways of arriving at it from the argument I mentioned at the outset.

The extreme view could of course be weakened to say that while abortion is permissible to save the mother's life, it may not be performed by a third party, but only by the mother herself. But this cannot be right either. For what we have to keep in mind is that the mother and the unborn child are not like two tenants in a small house which has, by an unfortunate mistake, been rented to both: the mother owns the house. The fact that she does adds to the offensiveness of deducing that the mother can do nothing from the supposition that third parties can do nothing. But it does more than this: it casts a bright light on the supposition that third parties can do nothing. Certainly it lets us see that a third party who says "I cannot choose between you" is fooling himself if he thinks this is impartiality. If Jones has found and fastened on a certain coat, which he needs to keep him from freezing, but which Smith also needs to keep him from freezing, then it is not impartiality that says "I cannot choose between you" when Smith owns the coat. Women have said again and again "This body is my body!" and they have reason to feel angry, reason to feel that it has been like shouting into the wind. Smith, after all, is hardly likely to bless us if we say to him, "Of course it's your coat, anybody would grant that it is. But no one may choose between you and Jones who is to have it."

We should really ask what it is that says "no one may choose" in the face of the fact that the body that houses the child is the mother's body. It may be simply a failure to appreciate this fact. But it may be something more interesting, namely the sense that one has a right to refuse to lay hands on people, even where it would be just and fair to do so, even where justice seems to require that somebody do so. Thus justice might call for somebody to get Smith's coat back from Jones, and yet you have a right to refuse to be the one to lay hands on Jones, a right to refuse to do physical violence to him. This, I think, must be granted. But then what should be said is not "no one may choose," but only "I cannot choose," and indeed not even this, but "I will not act," leaving it open that somebody else can or should, and in particular that anyone in a position of authority, with the job of securing people's rights, both can and should. So this is no difficulty. I have not been arguing that any given third party must accede to the mother's request that he perform an abortion to save her life, but only that he may.

I suppose that in some views of human life the mother's body is only on loan to her, the loan not being one which gives her any prior claim to it. One who held this view might well think it impartiality to say "I cannot choose." But I shall simply ignore this possibility. My own view is that if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body. And perhaps this needn't be argued for here anyway, since, as I mentioned, the arguments against abortion we are looking at do grant that the woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But although they do grant it, I have tried to show that they do not take seriously what is done in granting it. I suggest the same thing will reappear even more clearly when we turn away from cases in which the mother's life is at stake, and attend, as I propose we now do, to the vastly more common cases in which a woman wants an abortion for some less weighty reason than preserving her own life.

Where the mother s life is not at stake, the argument I mentioned at the outset seems to have a much stronger pull. "Everyone has a right to life, so the unborn person has a right to life." And isn't the child's right to life weightier than anything other than the mother's own right to life, which she might put forward as ground for an abortion?

This argument treats the right to life as if it were unproblematic. It is not, and this seems to me to be precisely the source of the mistake.

For we should now, at long last, ask what it comes to, to have a right to life. In some views having a right to life includes having a right to be given at least the bare minimum one needs for continued life. But suppose that what in fact IS the bare minimum a man needs for continued life is something he has no right at all to be given? If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. It would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide it. It would be less nice, though no doubt well meant, if my friends flew out to the West coast and brought Henry Fonda back with them. But I have no right at all against anybody that he should do this for me. Or again, to return to the story I told earlier, the fact that for continued life the violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys does not establish that he has a right to be given the continued use of your kidneys. He certainly has no right against you that you should give him continued use of your kidneys. For nobody has any right to use your kidneys unless you give him this right--if you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due. Nor has he any right against anybody else that they should give him continued use of your kidneys. Certainly he had no right against the Society of Music Lovers that they should plug him into you in the first place. And if you now start to unplug yourself, having learned that you will otherwise have to spend nine years in bed with him, there is nobody in the world who must try to prevent you, in order to see to it that he is given some thing he has a right to be given.

Some people are rather stricter about the right to life. In their view, it does not include the right to be given anything, but amounts to, and only to, the right not to be killed by anybody. But here a related difficulty arises. If everybody is to refrain from killing that violinist, then everybody must refrain from doing a great many different sorts of things. Everybody must refrain from slitting his throat, everybody must refrain from shooting him--and everybody must refrain from unplugging you from him. But does he have a right against everybody that they shall refrain from unplugging you frolic him? To refrain from doing this is to allow him to continue to use your kidneys. It could be argued that he has a right against us that we should allow him to continue to use your kidneys. That is, while he had no right against us that we should give him the use of your kidneys, it might be argued that he anyway has a right against us that we shall not now intervene and deprive him Of the use of your kidneys. I shall come back to third-party interventions later. But certainly the violinist has no right against you that you shall allow him to continue to use your kidneys. As I said, if you do allow him to use them, it is a kindness on your part, and not something you owe him.

The difficulty I point to here is not peculiar to the right of life. It reappears in connection with all the other natural rights, and it is something which an adequate account of rights must deal with. For present purposes it is enough just to draw attention to it. But I would stress that I am not arguing that people do not have a right to life--quite to the contrary, it seems to me that the primary control we must place on the acceptability of an account of rights is that it should turn out in that account to be a truth that all persons have a right to life. I am arguing only that having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person s body--even if one needs it for life itself. So the right to life will not serve the opponents of abortion in the very simple and clear way in which they seem to have thought it would.

There is another way to bring out the difficulty. In the most ordinary sort of case, to deprive someone of what he has a right to is to treat him unjustly. Suppose a boy and his small brother are jointly given a box of chocolates for Christmas. If the older boy takes the box and refuses to give his brother any of the chocolates, he is unjust to him, for the brother has been given a right to half of them. But suppose that, having learned that otherwise it means nine years in bed with that violinist, you unplug yourself from him. You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys, and no one else can have given him any such right. But we have to notice that in unplugging yourself, you are killing him; and violinists, like everybody else, have a right to life, and thus in the view we were considering just now, the right not to be killed. So here you do what he supposedly has a right you shall not do, but you do not act unjustly to him in doing it.

The emendation which may be made at this point is this: the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly. This runs a risk of circularity, but never mind: it would enable us to square the fact that the violinist has a right to life with the fact that you do not act unjustly toward him in unplugging yourself, thereby killing him. For if you do not kill him unjustly, you do not violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him no injustice.

But if this emendation is accepted, the gap in the argument against abortion stares us plainly in the face: it is by no means enough to show that the fetus is a person, and to remind us that all persons have a right to life--we need to be shown also that killing the fetus violates its right to life, i.e., that abortion is unjust killing. And is it?

I suppose we may take it as a datum that in a case of pregnancy due to rape the mother has not given the unborn person a right to the use of her body for food and shelter. Indeed, in what pregnancy could it be supposed that the mother has given the unborn person such a right? It is not as if there are unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in."

But it might be argued that there are other ways one can have acquired a right to the use of another person's body than by having been invited to use it by that person. Suppose a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she does become pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the presence, in fact the very existence, of the unborn person inside? No doubt she did not invite it in. But doesn't her partial responsibility for its being there itself give it a right to the use of her body? If so, then her aborting it would be more like the boys taking away the chocolates, and less like your unplugging yourself from the violinist--doing so would be depriving it of what it does have a right to, and thus would be doing it an injustice.

And then, too, it might be asked whether or not she can kill it even to save her own life: If she voluntarily called it into existence, how can she now kill it, even in self-defense?

The first thing to be said about this is that it is something new. Opponents of abortion have been so concerned to make out the independence of the fetus, in order to establish that it has a right to life, just as its mother does, that they have tended to overlook the possible support they might gain from making out that the fetus is dependent on the mother, in order to establish that she has a special kind of responsibility for it, a responsibility that gives it rights against her which are not possessed by any independent person--such as an ailing violinist who is a stranger to her.

On the other hand, this argument would give the unborn person a right to its mother's body only if her pregnancy resulted from a voluntary act, undertaken in full knowledge of the chance a pregnancy might result from it. It would leave out entirely the unborn person whose existence is due to rape. Pending the availability of some further argument, then, we would be left with the conclusion that unborn persons whose existence is due to rape have no right to the use of their mothers' bodies, and thus that aborting them is not depriving them of anything they have ~ right to and hence is not unjust killing.

And we should also notice that it is not at all plain that this argument really does go even as far as it purports to. For there are cases and cases, and the details make a difference. If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, "Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house--for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.'' It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars. It remains equally absurd if we imagine it is not a burglar who climbs in, but an innocent person who blunders or falls in. Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won't do--for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.

It seems to me that the argument we are looking at can establish at most that there are some cases in which the unborn person has a right to the use of its mother's body, and therefore some cases in which abortion is unjust killing. There is room for much discussion and argument as to precisely which, if any. But I think we should sidestep this issue and leave it open, for at any rate the argument certainly does not establish that all abortion is unjust killing.

There is room for yet another argument here, however. We surely must all grant that there may be cases in which it would be morally indecent to detach a person from your body at the cost of his life. Suppose you learn that what the violinist needs is not nine years of your life, but only one hour: all you need do to save his life is to spend one hour in that bed with him. Suppose also that letting him use your kidneys for that one hour would not affect your health in the slightest. Admittedly you were kidnapped. Admittedly you did not give anyone permission to plug him into you. Nevertheless it seems to me plain you ought to allow him to use your kidneys for that hour--it would be indecent to refuse.

Again, suppose pregnancy lasted only an hour, and constituted no threat to life or health. And suppose that a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape. Admittedly she did not voluntarily do anything to bring about the existence of a child. Admittedly she did nothing at all which would give the unborn person a right to the use of her body. All the same it might well be said, as in the newly amended violinist story, that she ought to allow it to remain for that hour--that it would be indecent of her to refuse.

Now some people are inclined to use the term "right" in such a way that it follows from the fact that you ought to allow a person to use your body for the hour he needs, that he has a right to use your body for the hour he needs, even though he has not been given that right by any person or act. They may say that it follows also that if you refuse, you act unjustly toward him. This use of the term is perhaps so common that it cannot be called wrong; nevertheless it seems to me to be an unfortunate loosening of what we would do better to keep a tight rein on. Suppose that box of chocolates I mentioned earlier had not been given to both boys jointly, but was given only to the older boy. There he sits stolidly eating his way through the box. his small brother watching enviously. Here we are likely to say, "You ought not to be so mean. You ought to give your brother some of those chocolates." My own view is that it just does not follow from the truth of this that the brother has any right to any of the chocolates. If the boy refuses to give his brother any he is greedy stingy. callous--but not unjust. I suppose that the people I have in mind will say it does follow that the brother has a right to some of the chocolates, and thus that the boy does act unjustly if he refuses to give his brother any. But the effect of saying, this is to obscure what we should keep distinct, namely the difference between the boy's refusal in this case and the boy's refusal in the earlier case, in which the box was given to both boys jointly, and in which the small brother thus had what was from any point of view clear title to half.

A further objection to so using the term "right" that from the fact that A ought to do a thing for B it follows that R has a right against A that A do it for him, is that it is going to make the question of whether or not a man has a right to a thing turn on how easy it is to provide him with it; and this seems not merely unfortunate, but morally unacceptable. Take the case of Henry Fonda again. I said earlier that I had no right to the touch of his cool hand on my fevered brow even though I needed it to save my life. I said it would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide me with it, but that I had no right against him that he should do so. But suppose he isn't on the West Coast. Suppose he has only to walk across the room, place a hand briefly on my brow--and lo, my life is saved. Then surely he ought to do it-it would be indecent to refuse. Is it to be said, "Ah, well, it follows that in this case she has a right to the touch of his hand on her brow, and so it would be an injustice in him to refuse"? So that I have a right to it when it is easy for him to provide it, though no right when it's hard? It's rather a shocking idea that anyone's rights should fade away and disappear as it gets harder and harder to accord them to him.

So my own view is that even though you ought to let the violinist use your kidneys for the one hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so--we should say that if you refuse, you are, like the boy who owns all the chocolates and will give none away, self-centered and callous, indecent in fact, but not unjust. And similarly, that even supposing a case in which a woman pregnant due to rape ought to allow the unborn person to use her body for the hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so; we should say that she is self-centered, callous, indecent, but not unjust, if she refuses. The complaints are no less grave; they are just different. However, there is no need to insist on this point. If anyone does wish to deduce "he has a right" from "you ought," then all the same he must surely grant that there are cases in which it is not morally required of you that you allow that violinist to use your kidneys, and in which he does not have a right to use them, and in which you do not do him an injustice if you refuse. And so also for mother and unborn child. Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it--and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases--nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive.

We have in fact to distinguish between two kinds of Samaritan: the Good Samaritan and what we might call the Minimally Decent Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan, you will remember, goes like this:

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, "Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." (Luke 10:30-35)

The Good Samaritan went out of his way, at some cost to himself, to help one in need of it. We are not told what the options were, that is, whether or not the priest and the Levite could have helped by doing less than the Good Samaritan did, but assuming they could have, then the fact they did nothing at all shows they were not even Minimally Decent Samaritans, not because they were not Samaritans, but because they were not even minimally decent.

These things are a matter of degree, of course, but there is a difference, and it comes out perhaps most clearly in the story of Kitty Genovese, who, as you will remember, was murdered while thirty-eight people watched or listened, and did nothing at all to help her. A Good Samaritan would have rushed out to give direct assistance against the murderer. Or perhaps we had better allow that it would have been a Splendid Samaritan who did this, on the ground that it would have involved a risk of death for himself. But the thirty-eight not only did not do this, they did not even trouble to pick up a phone to call the police. Minimally Decent Samaritanism would call for doing at least that, and their not having done it was monstrous.

After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus said, "Go, and do thou likewise." Perhaps he meant that we are morally required to act as the Good Samaritan did. Perhaps he was urging people to do more than is morally required of them. At all events it seems plain that it was not morally required of any of the thirty-eight that he rush out to give direct assistance at the risk of his own life, and that it is not morally required of anyone that he give long stretches of his life--nine years or nine months--to sustaining the life of a person who has no special right (we were leaving open the possibility of this) to demand it.

Indeed, with one rather striking class of exceptions, no one in any country in the world is legally required to do anywhere near as much as this for anyone else. The class of exceptions is obvious. My main concern here is not the state of the law in respect to abortion, but it is worth drawing attention to the fact that in no state in this country is any man compelled by law to be even a Minimally Decent Samaritan to any person; there is no law under which charges could be brought against the thirty eight who stood by while Kitty Genovese died. By contrast, in most states in this country women are compelled by law to be not merely Minimally Decent Samaritans, but Good Samaritans to unborn persons inside them. This doesn't by itself settle anything one way or the other, because it may well be argued that there should be laws in this country as there are in many European countries--compelling at least Minimally Decent Samaritanism. But it does show that there is a gross injustice in the existing state of the law. And it shows also that the groups currently working against liberalization of abortion laws, in fact working toward having it declared unconstitutional for a state to permit abortion, had better start working for the adoption of Good Samaritan laws generally, or earn the charge that they are acting in bad faith.

I should think, myself, that Minimally Decent Samaritan laws would be one thing, Good Samaritan laws quite another, and in fact highly improper. But we are not here concerned with the law. What we should ask is not whether anybody should be compelled by law to be a Good Samaritan, but whether we must accede to a situation in which somebody is being compelled--by nature, perhaps--to be a Good Samaritan. We have, in other words, to look now at third-party interventions. I have been arguing that no person is morally required to make large sacrifices to sustain the life of another who has no right to demand them, and this even where the sacrifices do not include life itself; we are not morally required to be Good Samaritans or anyway Very Good Samaritans to one another. But what if a man cannot extricate himself from such a situation? What if he appeals to us to extricate him? It seems to me plain that there are cases in which we can, cases in which a Good Samaritan would extricate him. There you are, you were kidnapped, and nine years in bed with that violinist lie ahead of you. You have your own life to lead. You are sorry, but you simply cannot see giving up so much of your life to the sustaining of his. You cannot extricate yourself, and ask us to do so. I should have thought that--in light of his having no right to the use of your body--it was obvious that we do not have to accede to your being forced to give up so much. We can do what you ask. There is no injustice to the violinist in our doing so.

Following the lead of the opponents of abortion, I have throughout been speaking of the fetus merely as a person, and what I have been asking is whether or not the argument we began with, which proceeds only from the fetus's being a person, really does establish its conclusion. I have argued that it does not.

But of course there are arguments and arguments, and it may be said that I have simply fastened on the wrong one. It may be said that what is important is not merely the fact that the fetus is a person, but that it is a person for whom the woman has a special kind of responsibility issuing from the fact that she is its mother. And it might be argued that all my analogies are therefore irrelevant--for you do not have that special kind of responsibility for that violinist; Henry Fonda does not have that special kind of responsibility for me. And our attention might be drawn to the fact that men and women both are compelled by law to provide support for their children

I have in effect dealt (briefly) with this argument in section 4 above; but a (still briefer) recapitulation now may be in order. Surely we do not have any such "special responsibility" for a person unless we have assumed it, explicitly or implicitly. If a set of parents do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, but rather take it home with them, then they have assumed responsibility for it, they have given it rights, and they cannot now withdraw support from it at the cost of its life because they now find it difficult to go on providing for it. But if they have taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it. They may wish to assume responsibility for it, or they may not wish to. And I am suggesting that if assuming responsibility for it would require large sacrifices, then they may refuse. A Good Samaritan would not refuse--or anyway, a Splendid Samaritan, if the sacrifices that had to be made were enormous. But then so would a Good Samaritan assume responsibility for that violinist; so would Henry Fonda, if he is a Good Samaritan, fly in from the West Coast and assume responsibility for me.

My argument will be found unsatisfactory on two counts by many of those who want to regard abortion as morally permissible. First, while I do argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible. There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below. I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no. It allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law. And it also allows for and supports our sense that in other cases resort to abortion is even positively indecent. It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad. The very fact that the arguments I have been drawing attention to treat all cases of abortion, or even all cases of abortion in which the mother's life is not at stake, as morally on a par ought to have made them suspect at the outset.

Second, while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a certain point in the life of the fetus it is not able to survive outside the mother's body; hence removing it from her body guarantees its death. But they are importantly different. I have argued that you are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him. There are some people who will feel dissatisfied by this feature of my argument. A woman may be utterly devastated by the thought of a child, a bit of herself, put out for adoption and never seen or heard of again. She may therefore want not merely that the child be detached from her, but more, that it die. Some opponents of abortion are inclined to regard this as beneath contempt--thereby showing insensitivity to what is surely a powerful source of despair. All the same, I agree that the desire for the child's death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive.

At this place, however, it should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here".

#yes this is the complete essay #read it.

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getvalentined · 9 months

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Content warnings on this post: Pregnancy and its associated biological weirdness, premature birth, seizures, fleeting mention of suicide, and my favorite character in the entire world getting shot. Discretion is advised.

So I've been trying to figure out a way to calculate roughly what point in Lucrecia's pregnancy her big seizure occurred, leading to Vincent confronting Hojo and getting shot. We know it was in 1977, and I've always assumed it was fairly late (because Sephiroth was probably born on Christmas, see link above for justification), but there's not actually much of anything in canon to confirm or refute this assumption.

Only, actually, it turns out that there is. It's so far off the path of things that are common knowledge that it's fallen off the edge of the continent, but it's there.

This is...very long, but please bear with me, because this is the best example of the timeline of this series being staggeringly internally consistent that I've ever seen.

Lucrecia's seizure was caused by Jenova, because it's super similar to the seizures Cloud has in Advent Children. This is weird, because while not stated in the games, there is a very specifically phrased blurb in the Crisis Core Complete Guide stating that Lucrecia was never personally exposed to Jenova cells while carrying Sephiroth:

[Description in alt text. Credit to jeange1231 and Shinra Archaeology on the bird app.]

Given that we don't have in-series canon that contradicts this, I have no issue with accepting it's canonicity. (This is what meta is for. Filling in gaps. Not contradicting the actual games.)

So the zygote/fetus that eventually became Sephiroth was treated in utero, with the assumption that it wouldn't spread to Lucrecia. I won't go into detail on the science here, but it makes sense that Gast and Co. made this assumption, given the existence of the placental barrier and the fact that Project S took place in the late 1970s, when we didn't understand these things as well as we do now. (We still do not understand them very well but that's neither here nor there.)

Cell migration between mother and child is a known phenomenon that isn't well understood, but occurs in a staggering number of pregnancies—it may occur in all pregnancies and simply not persist, but in humans it's been shown to persist for decades. (Basically everything I say about this is going to come from the paper linked above.) In humans it's known to occur no earlier than 10 weeks into a pregnancy. The paper doesn't seem to indicate the latest point it's known to occur in humans, which is interesting, but even if it only takes place for a very limited amount of time, that doesn't throw this off in the slightest.

According to the blurb above, Lucrecia canonically experienced cell migration, essentially being infected with Jenova by the unborn Sephiroth, but not in such a way that anyone caught it—or at least not until it was too late. If the cell migration itself was the event responsible for the seizure that pushed Vincent to confronting Hojo, that means that Sephiroth absolutely couldn't have been born in 1977, much less on Christmas. Vincent was shot no earlier than October 13th, and cell migration occurs around 10-12 weeks.

But the seizure didn't happen at 10-12 weeks. It couldn't have—Sephiroth's strain of Jenova is unique in that it responds to his will specifically. Without his will, it's not really active, which we see all throughout the Compilation. Cloud only wakes up at the end of Crisis Core around the time that Sephiroth starts calling for Reunion, and he's not cognizant until that call is loud enough to start drawing other Clones out of hiding; likewise, he appears to be in remission between Meteorfall and the events of Advent Children, at which point he starts having seizures of his own in response to Sephiroth gathering enough power to pull at his strings for the first time in years.

Fetal brain development kicks into high gear at the onset of the third trimester, roughly 28 weeks into a traditional 40 week pregnancy. (Interestingly, in mice, cell migration only seems to occur 2 weeks into a pregnancy, which is the equivalent of the onset of the third trimester because lab mice have a total gestational period of about 3 weeks.)

The third trimester is the point when Sephiroth began to have a will with which to pull at the unique strain of Jenova cells that had migrated from him to Lucrecia. With that in mind, we can say with a decent level of confidence that Lucrecia's seizure took place in the third trimester, around 26-28 weeks in.

And here's where it all comes together.

Assuming that Sephiroth was born on Christmas of 1977, at or close to full term (38-40 weeks), this would put his conception around the end of March. If he was conceived at the end of March, do you know when the third trimester starts?

The first or second week of October.

The earliest date that Vincent could have been shot is October 13th, 1977, because he was 27 years old at the time, and he was born in 1950. Hojo shot Vincent when he confronted him about Lucrecia's seizure.

I'd always had the headcanon that Sephiroth was premature, but taking actual human gestation into account—combined with the nature of Lucrecia's seizure and the confirmation that her strain of Jenova comes from Sephiroth specifically via cell migration—makes this line up so perfectly that I have to admit that this headcanon is directly refuted by actual canon. Sephiroth may have been a week or two early, but not enough to worry. He was a perfectly healthy baby, born at a perfectly acceptable term.

And he was born on Christmas, because he was conceived in late March, because Lucrecia's seizure happened around the onset of the third trimester, which occurred in early to mid-October, which is the earliest possible timeframe that Vincent could have been shot for confronting Hojo about it.

This is so internally consistent that the real world facts and features of human gestation line up without causing a single wave. I'm losing my fucking mind.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

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fictionadventurer · 10 months

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Would you be able to tell me more about how pro-life positions are beneficial to women?

I have been becoming more pro-life over the past year because I see edges of this argument online, but I don't know enough to try to clearly explain it to myself, much less to other people. One point someone brought up that helped me see this differently was that abortions are a band-aid solution to sexual abuse and help make it easier to hide sexual violence. And I have also seen the point people make that companies would rather provide abortion care than maternity leave because it keeps people working.

I'm curious if you have other thoughts that can help me affirm this point both to myself and to others? I think there's a lot of vitriol around how people speak about women in abortion discussions, and it can make it hard for people who are on the fence to engage. And having more examples of how pro-life advocates care for women would make it easier to enter into the conversation, especially with people who take a feminist approach to the topic.

(I also want to affirm that I'm asking this in good faith, as someone who wants to learn sincerely, and I hope you might respond sincerely too. I'm taking it for granted that a fetus is also a human, so I'm more interested in how to bring up this other part of the discussion with people. If this is a topic you know less about, that's all right too.)

I tend to approach abortion debates by keeping a laser-focus on the fact that the fetus is a human and a person, because we need to remind people that no problem that the mother faces justifies killing an innocent human being. That said, the pro-life position is infinitely better for women in a bunch of different ways. I'm not going to provide sources, because there are lots of better blogs devoted to that kind of thing (@prolifeproliberty is one that's coming to mind), but I can provide a few talking points.

The biggest benefit a pro-life position provides to a woman is that she doesn't have to live with the fact that she killed her own child. People understand on an instinctive level that a woman is pregnant with a baby; they can try to gloss over it with rhetoric, but the truth remains that the woman pregnant with a human being with its own separate life to live, and abortion violently ends that life. Abortion regret is a very real thing; there's a vast increase in depression and suicide in post-abortive women, and these women often can't get help for such regret, because people deny that it exists, or because "it was her choice".

A pro-life position is also infinitely more empowering to women. Abortion supporters look at a pregnant woman and tell her, "You can't do this. You can't raise a child. You can't have a career. You can't get out of poverty. This will destroy your life." The pro-life position tells a woman that she can do this. She's strong enough. She's smart enough. Both she and her child can have fulfilling lives, because we can help her. The pro-life community provides tons of resources to help women get the supplies and medical care and support that they need to either raise the child or to find adoptive parents to help raise it. Abortion only gets rid of the child--it doesn't solve any of the other problems that made it so difficult for the woman to have a child.

Abortion is also the single greatest tool to allow men to sexually abuse women. The pro-abortion idea that men are against abortion because they want to oppress women is laughable. Men get no benefit from a pro-life position. Abortion allows men to sleep around as much as they like, and if they get a woman pregnant, they don't have to pay child support--they just pay for her abortion and go on their merry way. No concern for her mental or physical or emotional health--just convenience for him. Abortion turns both woman and child into objects for a man's pleasure, to be disposed of when they're not fun anymore.

I could go on for ages, but to keep this simple, I'll just list a few other points:

Abortion greatly increases a woman's risk of breast cancer, and can cause fertility problems later in life.

The abortion pill is extremely dangerous, especially used unsupervised, because it can cause extreme bleeding and other complications.

Abortion allows sexual abusers to hide the evidence of their sexual abuse and keep women trapped longer. This includes human-trafficking and prostitution situations.

Women are often pressured into abortion because of lack of support from their family or community. People might be willing to help her pay for the abortion, but if the woman chooses to have the child, people are unwilling to provide long-term support--it was "her choice", so she has to bear all the responsibility. A decision for abortion made under that kind of pressure isn't really concerned about "a woman's choice."

As you said, employers are far more willing to pay for abortion than they are to provide much more expensive maternity leave, health insurance, etc. It can serve as another tool for employers to oppress workers.

Abortion supporters are often so focused on increasing access to abortion that they put women at risk. They have shot down and repealed bills that require abortion clinics to be licensed and inspected and to meet certain minimum medical standards. They've allowed teenagers to get abortions without parental notification, even though they're legally not competent to make other medical decisions, and the abortion procedure could put the teen's health at risk (plus this can cause teens to be trapped even longer in trafficking situations). They shoot down measures that would require women to be given more information about the abortion procedure and other options--even though informed consent is a cornerstone of medical ethics. If abortion supporters were truly concerned about women, they would be willing to put some of these common-sense protective measures in place.

#pro life #answered asks #i feel like this is very haphazard but i hope it helps a little bit

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granulesofsand · 6 months

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We sometimes struggle with feeling normal. The plurality is already unlike most people we know, but we don’t really fit with how professionals say we have to heal.

We are not aiming for integration. We like our dissociation and amnesia and the separation we’re afforded because of them. It reassures us that we are people, not one person divided.

But that blaring difference in our view versus the common interpretation of the Theory of Structural Dissociation makes us feel bad and wrong. Books about RAMCOA especially push the less-than-one idea, which makes it harder to find others like us.

Those books also mention prenatal splitting. I don’t know how true it is, but I know some things about neuroscience between mothers and newborns. It seems like people could try that, and the inflictions could at least damage the parental bond of the fetus.

One of our counselors told us a long while ago that we might not have been a system if we had been switched at birth, or adopted before ever spending time with our biological family.

I thought it was almost cruel then, because we had prompted it by saying we didn’t want to fuse and there never was a person we could have been. Not in any reality, not along any adjusted timeline. If we exist, we are a system, so this is how we were always going to be.

This is the closest to natural we will ever know. If we pursue final fusion, which we don’t want, that person will not be a version of us without trauma. Those experiences can’t be undone, even if they’re healed.

But I don’t know if she was right. For everything done to us before and right after, there might never have been a chance for us to be a singlet.

It eases the worry, knowing that we always would have been abnormal. It makes it feasible to go on and not care what singlets decide our systemhood means.

No one has ever been us. We don’t have that level of knowledge between ourselves. Singlets just don’t like to feel less than, so they look at our trauma and tell us we are worse off. It’s okay if we aren’t. We don’t have to conform to heal.

#did osdd #dissociative identity disorder #osddid #ramcoa #polyfragmented system #tw ramcoa

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partialbirthabortion · 1 year

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sometimes when i discuss abortion with friends (they are all pro-choice), some will say things like they are fine with abortion as long as it isn't used as a form of birth control, and you can't just wait until the last minute. to this i usually tell them that late stage abortions are very rare and usually only when there is a life-threatening condition to the mother and fetus that makes it impossible to survive, but i feel by saying this i am opening the door to admitting there is in fact such thing as a frivolous, unnecessary abortion. what would you say instead?

This used to really bother me and honestly doesn't any more. The (un/fortunate) reality is that very few people think deeply about their individual opinions about abortion and largely parrot common talking points oft repeated on "their side." Ie, I know I support access to abortion and usually I hear my political leaders say things like, "safe, legal, and rare!" or "necessary evil" and that sounds roughly right to me so I will repeat it without really thinking about its implications. That makes it less frustrating for me to hear; frankly, most women just aren't THAT invested in abortion except during the few months of their lives it personally affects them, when they or their daughter/sister/friend is seeking one. It is what it is. The fact that you are concerned at all about throwing some women/some abortions under the bus as frivolous means you think about abortion more than probably 95% of people you will ever talk to about it.

I honestly think the way you approach it is about as good as it gets- as is actually pretty identical to what NARAL recommends. I actually perceive "later abortions are a small percentage of abortions and are usually done for medical reasons" to be a bit of a little white lie; I have seen plenty of 16, 18, and 20 week abortions (which many people DO consider later term abortions even if it technically only those >21 weeks) performed on women who didn't know they were pregnant, or were totally in denial and being avoidant, or couldn't make a decision, or had a major change to their financial or familial circumstances, etc, etc. Depending on how confrontational you want to be, "It's (silly/short-sighted/misogynistic) to think any woman takes having a late abortion lightly" is usually what I'd go with unless I know that the person is genuinely engaging with the topic and the impeachability of their viewpoint.

#reproductive justice

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homenecromancer · 24 days

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anyway here’s how D2ne in IMAX went / some thoughts

- i gotta see/read something at least twice for things to really start coming together for me, because i am a slow learner lmao

- it’s gonna be different for each viewer, but there’s definitely a point in this movie where things kind of click and you go “oh, this is a Villain versus Other Villain movie, there’s no hero here” and from that point forward it absolutely whips

- for twenty years i have enjoyed watching/reading bad things happen to Paul Atreides, and Timothee Chalamet manages to hit an excellent balance between making you feel bad for a guy swept up by forces beyond his control at the same time as he makes you aware that Paul is not as helpless as he feels like he is. equal parts “oh no this poor guy” and the dread of watching something like a natural disaster wearing human skin.

- the final fight scene with Feyd-Rautha is pretty much impeccable, which i say as a person who has almost-universal trouble processing wtf is happening in fight scenes, blow-by-blow. but in this scene i thought it was well-communicated that Paul has almost met his match, but Feyd-Rautha is ultimately just not good enough. i tentatively propose that Paul’s ability to get stabbed twice and not just keep fighting, but win, and then dominate the Emperor into kissing his ring, is due to Bene Gesserit training in mastery of the body. he’s the Kwisatz Haderach because he can access both male and female Other Memory; he becomes Emperor partly because of his Bene Gesserit training, forbidden to men. symmetry

- because i was a preteen when i read Dune for the first time, a lot of things went right the fuck by me and a lot of characters just didn’t really make an impression on me. but these two movies bring life even to those characters who aren’t on screen for all that long

- like, despite her pivotal role in Dune and Dune Messiah (and supporting role in Children of Dune), Irulan made very little impression on my child brain. Florence Pugh is so absolutely perfect on-screen that — okay, i won’t say all without checking (and i’m not doing that at work), but many chapters of Dune begin with quotations from Irulan’s written work. an insane way to adapt this for the screen, to emphasize her presence, would be to have her do a voiceover before every scene. this would be a terrible decision. i would watch every god damn second of Florence Pugh as Irulan doing that.

- Chani is unfortunately a bit of a non-entity in the book — as the focus on Paul gets tighter, and he adjusts to life with the Fremen, she fades into the background a little bit, and we lose insight into her inner life. which is a huge shame, because you could write a whole book just about what happens to Chani in the timespan covered by Dune. i have never seen anything else she’s in, but Zendaya does a fabulous job as Chani, and makes her character absolutely come to life. like i’m in delighted suspense hoping the Dune Messiah adaptation comes through just because Chani and Irulan both have so much going on in that book, and i want to see these actors play those roles so bad

- Rebecca Ferguson continues to be great as Lady Jessica — she has a very similar “fuck it, i’ll be evil” kind of arc as Paul (though Jessica is notably much less willing to commit to Full Evil than her son), and Ferguson sells the hell out of it. when i first read the book, i certainly did not appreciate the horror of being pregnant with a fetus that’s a full Reverend Mother — i mean, i don’t even think Frank Herbert shows it as effectively as Ferguson does. her delivery of the line “She talks to me” is bone-chilling.

- she’s only in the movie for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but Léa Seydoux is very good as Lady Margot Fenring — her husband Count Hasimir Fenring does not exist in the movie, and Margot partially takes his role. let me explain a bit: Count Fenring is the Emperor’s bestie and hatchetman in the book, and appears in the final fight scene (where we learn he is a defective output of the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program). in the movie, though she doesn’t have any lines in that scene, Margot appears in his place. also different in the movie: Margot’s seduction of Feyd-Rautha is on camera, and rather than her husband, she is mostly seen with other Bene Gesserit while she’s on Giedi Prime. anyway. the Fenrings are two of the more astute characters in the book, and i thought compressing them into just the one character worked quite well

- is this movie exactly what i imagined when i first read the book? fuck no it’s not. and i cannot assess how well it conveys the themes of the book for those who haven’t read it. but as someone who has been waaaaay too into Dune at various points, i thought it was a very satisfying execution. much like Peter Jackson’s LOTR adaptations, i think Villeneuve’s Dune adaptations are technically impressive, beautifully executed love letters to their source material

- there are a lot of visually striking images and sequences in this movie, but the one that stuck with me this time is near the very end — as the Fremen charge out of the sandstorm at the assembled Sardaukar troops, there’s a moment where some Sardaukar are confronted by a towering wall of windblown sand. the sand at their feet begins to undergo liquefaction under their boots. then an enormous sandworm appears, looming over them like the face of God, mouth open and ready to swallow them whole. it’s so fucking dope

#marlowe talks dune

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hislittleflower-throughconcrete · 2 years

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You seem like a good person at heart who takes pride in bringing comfort to others, but your stance on abortion makes me feel ill. Why would you delight in what, in many cases, is a livesaving procedure for women and mothers, being criminalized? Your faith is your own and the morality that comes with it is your own. I don't think it's right that you ascribe your values to the bodies of other women. Many of us do not believe in life begining at conception, or the concept of a soul, or that a fetus is a conscious being. This is something that cannot be proven, either, so it truly is an argument of faith in my opinion. These can be reprehensible viewpoints to you, sure, and I wouldn't hold it against you if you PERSONALLY would never seek an abortion. Your faith should not rejoice in snuffing out the voice of an entire group of people. Why do you delight in that?

Firstly, I appreciate the sincerity of this ask. I can tell you're not a troll, you truly believe what you say, and are earnestly trying to understand. Thank you for sending this to me.

Abortion never saves a life. There is no health condition that abortion cures or treats - ectopic pregnancies, preeclampsia, and other complications of pregnancy have treatment and procedures that are designed to address that issue without interacting with the baby, except in some cases to deliver it. Abortion is the intentional ending of the life of an unborn child - it does not save the life of any woman who has it.

Not only does abortion never save a life, it always damages them, and always kills their child. It's like saying a single mother's financial struggle was "solved" when her child got killed by getting hit by a car. Imagine thinking that was a viable solution instead of an atomic bomb to a woman's life. I pray you never have to deal with the aftermath. I have witnessed a young woman sob after trying to hang herself after her abortion. Count yourself as fortunate to not know what it's like, and start taking seriously the stories of women who have had them.

Life beginning at conception is not a religious concept, it is a statement of scientific fact. I am not pro-life on religious grounds. And it depends on what stage of fetal development you're referring to in terms of "consciousness," but no pro-life person is pro-life because a fetus is "conscious." We are pro life because we are against violence against women and children. Abortion is both.

I am very intrigued by your last sentence. My faith - which is different than my being pro-life - "snuffing out" voices of others. Roe being overturned silences no one, and it does not make abortion illegal. Roe being overturned allows states to legislate abortion access, and that brings me great joy. Because the more abortion is restricted, the less abortions will happen, the less women will be hurt, the less children will die, and the more legislatures will be forced to provide actual resources to women in crisis (financial support, community, mental health, addiction, child care) instead of offering to "run over their child with a car" - and charge her money for it.

I'll end by saying that any tone of mine in answering this that may seem argumentative or harsh is not meant towards you, but towards abortion itself. It always makes me upset to know that an otherwise caring and empathetic person believes that abortion is good in any way. I truly think you are a person who has compassion. My advice to you is to continue to ask questions of people you disagree with, engage them in dialogue with open ears and heart. It's the only way to heal our divided country right now. Thank you for your openness in hearing what I have to say, and I wish you all the best.

#pro life #abortion #catholic

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mostlyinconvenient · 1 month

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A person becomes pregnant and suddenly their life needs to take a backseat, no matter if they want it or not. They're no longer an independent woman or human being, now they're a dirty whore and an incubator for a precious angel worth far more than themselves.

The mothers life is tainted by the sin of actually living, and is therefore worth less than the fetus at any stage. She can be respected but only if she embraces her role as a good mother should and doesn't fight it. Only if she accepts her place as a lesser being only meant to continue mans legacy.

If she even thinks of abortion, she is worse than a murderer for trying to destroy a life more pure than hers.

When that baby is born and it begins to be selfish and human, it too will lose its purity and it's right to life... but for now, it's life is more than yours and you will pay for failing it

#abortion #Currently going through it #I think the second spiderverse is the only film to portray a woman as like. More important than her pregnancy #It's not always so blatant but....#I feel like pregnant people are so often objectified and minimized in favor of their fetus/baby #Like. That's a person who has struggled and fought. They have fought to live and breathe and be here #That fetus or baby has done none of that #Why should we care more for it? Even if it is separate?

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whocookedthelastsupper · 3 months

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“In his dealings with the Mother Goddess and her worshipers, Muhammad was content with nothing less than "the historical liquidation of the female element," in the words of the Muslim historian Fatnah A. Sabbah. Even this, though, was not enough to ensure the perpetuation of the father god's victory. Women and men too had to be brought to believe in women's inferiority, to know that her rightful place was, in every sense, beneath the male. Accordingly the patriarchs of the One God embarked on a strenuous and hysterical myth-campaign to account for and enforce the subjection of women. Its essence is neatly summed up by St. Ambrose: "Adam was led to sin by Eve, and not Eve by Adam. It is just and right then that woman accept as lord and master him whom she led to sin."16 Women's world-without-end obligation to pay for the sin of Eve was also enshrined, indeed elaborated, in Islam: the Muslim sage Ghazali declared that "when Eve ate the fruit which He had forbidden to her, the Lord, be He praised, punished her with eighteen things." These included menstruation, childbirth, separation from her family, marriage to a stranger and confinement to her house— plus the fact that out of the 1,000 components of merit, women had only one, while men, however sinful, were gifted with the other 999.

The Adam and Eve myth, possibly the single most effective piece of enemy propaganda in the long history of the sex war, had other crucial implications. It performed the essential task of putting man first in the scheme of things; for in all the father god religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God creates man first: woman is born after man, framed of an insignificant and expendable lump of his bony gristle, and taken out of him like a child from its mother. Essentially this is just one of the countless attempts of womb-envious men to usurp women's power of birth: with a swift piece of patriarchal prestidigitation, God reverses biology and stands nature on its head with the birth of his man-child, in defiance of evolution, where men and women evolved together, and of life itself, where woman gives birth to man. God now assumed the power of all new life-all the monotheisms taught that God alone created and breathed life into each fetus, using the woman in whom he lodged it simply as an "envelope," in the Islamic phrase.

Yet still the fathers of the early religions were not done with downgrading women. Alongside this notion of women's inferior status flourished a conviction of women's inherent and inescapable inferiority. Among the Jews a husband was felt to be so much at the mercy of his wife's innate baseness that he was empowered to proceed against her any time "the spirit of jealousy come upon him," whether or not he had any evidence of misconduct on her part. Hauling her to the temple, he handed her over to the priest who uncovered her head in token of her humiliation, forced her to drink "bitter water" mixed of the dirt from the temple floor and gall, and cursed her, so that "her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot. Vindicated, the husband received an unequivocal thumbs-up from God: "then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity."' For his part the messenger of Allah received a personal verification of female turpitude in one of his revelations: "I stood at the gate of Hell" he reported. "Most of those who entered there were women.”

-Rosalind Miles; Who Cooked The Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World

#who cooked the last supper #herstory #womens history #radblr #radfem #radical feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminists do interact #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists please touch #feminism #feminist literature #radical feminists please interact #patriarchy #radical feminist community #radical feminist literature #radical feminst #radical feminist theory

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daughter-of-sapph0 · 2 years

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"but but but.... eugenicists use abortion. so abortion is bad"

first of all, no they don't. there is a theory that if a person can fully see if a fetus will have a mental disorder or something before they're born, then a eugenicist would get an abortion. but it's not possible right now with today's current technology to have that information before birth.

secondly, even if they did, so what? less than one percent of eugenicists support abortions, and less than a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of people who support abortions are eugenicists. why does that justify banning all abortions ever, even in cases that have nothing to do with abortion whatever?

thirdly, yes good people and terrible people sometimes like the same thing. homophobic people like video games, but I'm not gonna stop playing video games because some of the people who also play video games are homophobic. transphobic people drive cars. but I'm not gonna stop driving just because some of the people who drive are transphobic.

fourthly, since when the fuck do you conservative racist sexist homophobic freaks suddenly hate eugenics? you people have been supporting conversion therapy and the mistreatment of mentally ill and disabled people for centuries. why do you suddenly give a shit? the only reason you pretend to care now is so you can use it as leverage against human rights.

I wish your mother had gotten an abortion.

#dostxt #fuck you #abortion #eugenics tw

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thepro-lifemovement · 2 years

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Speaking For the Unborn (5.3)

“It’s not ‘alive’ or ‘human’ or a ‘person.’”

Argument 7: “An embryo or fetus is part of a woman’s body, and a woman can do whatever she wants with her own body.”

Rebuttal: The embryo is not a “part” of a woman’s body. Science clearly defines a “body part” as a structure that shares the same genetic code as the rest of the body (appendix, heart, arm, or tonsils) and does not direct its own development. The unborn child has a completely unique genetic code. Half of the time it even has a different sex. It directs its own development. So the embryo is clearly a separate human being residing temporarily inside his or her mother. That’s the science of the matter.

Argument 8: “A fetus does not have rights until it is ‘viable’— until it can live independently.”

First Rebuttal: “Viability” is a purely arbitrary determinate of rights. How is temporary dependency on another for life grounds for someone killing you? How about a man in a temporary coma? He’s fully dependent on feeding tubes, ventilators, intravenous lines, and twenty-four-hour medical care. Does he also forfeit his right to life when he finds himself in this condition?

Second Rebuttal: “Viability” is arbitrary because it is not a fixed point in time. It is dependent not only on the stage of the unborn child’s development but also on the medical technology available to the child if he or she were to be born at that minute. What was not viable in 1973 is now viable in 2022. How can any assessment of whether the unborn is “alive,” “human,” a “person,” or “possessing rights” depend on the technology in your particular town or the year you were conceived?

Third Rebuttal: In the end, if it’s not a life, you can do whatever you want with it. But if it is a life, you can’t do anything to it. Ref.

Fourth Rebuttal: “Imagine that if a woman is pregnant in New York City and she has a viable fetus. She is 22 weeks pregnant. If she gets on a plane and she flies to Bangladesh—guess what? That human fetus is no longer viable because viability in Bangladesh doesn’t occur until about 35 weeks. So let’s just assume she’s hanging out in Bangladesh, she doesn’t like it very much, so she decides that she’s going to come back to New York City, Are we actually going to suggest that she had a ‘person’ there in her uterus in New York City, a ‘non-person’ in Bangladesh, who, when returning to the United States of America, became a ‘person’ for the second time? It is absolutely absurd.” Ref.

Argument 9: "A fetus is not a person—and has no rights or intrinsic value—until it is a certain size, developed to a certain level, outside the uterus, and independent.”

First Rebuttal: Since when does the size of a human being determine his or her value? Smaller humans have no less a right to life than larger ones. The right to life does not increase with size or age. Otherwise, toddlers and adolescents would have less of a right to live than adults.

Second Rebuttal: Human development is simply a series of progressive stages, including embryo, fetus, adolescent, and adult. These are advancing stages of human development, not advancing stages of intrinsic value. Just as an adolescent doesn’t have greater intrinsic value than an infant, and infant has no greater intrinsic value than a fetus.

Third Rebuttal: Where you are located —in or out of the uterus—does not determine what you are or what your value is. We shouldn't discriminate against anyone because of his or her place of residence. How does a six-inch journey through the birth canal magically confer life or value?

Fourth Rebuttal: Dependence on another for life is no justification for killing them. Newborns are fully dependent on the adults in their lives, but they don't have less intrinsic value than adults. Should people in comas, stroke victims, or Alzheimer's patients also forfeit their rights to life? Are they no longer "persons" because they're dependent on others? A human's dependency is not grounds for forfeiting one's right to life. Someone's helplessness should motivate us to protect him or her, not to destroy the them.

Argument 10: “Abortion should be permitted until the fetus can feel pain.”

First Rebuttal: Why should the inability of an unborn child to feel pain at a certain stage make the killing of that baby OK? Do you really want to argue that as long as we make sure the killing of people is done without pain, it is somehow acceptable? And what about fully grown adults who suffer from medical conditions where they cannot feel pain? This condition is called “congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis (CIPA).” Should these adults also have no right to life?

Second Rebuttal: Even if we accepted the “abortion until ability to feel pain" criterion, this would still prohibit all abortions after twenty weeks, since there is universal scientific consensus that the unborn child feels pain at twenty weeks, possibly earlier. Source. Ref.

Argument 11: “An embryo is unaware of its own destruction, so it doesn’t matter.”

Rebuttal: "Awareness of harm" has never been required to make an act morally wrong. Nor should it. A drunken woman who passed out at a college frat party might never know she was raped by three men. Does her lack of "aware-ness" make the rape acceptable? A morally wrong act is morally wrong whether or not it is observed or felt.

Credit.

#Speaking for the unborn #part 5.3 #prolife rebuttals #resources #prochoice arguments #prolife #rebuttals

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