Translation

22 June 2010

Beckwith-McDonagh Right to Consent and Abortion

I've been doing some research regarding the view that non-consented pregnancy is essentially equivalent with rape insofar as both are seen as violations of a woman's bodily integrity (et al). It seems to me that something was missing from the debate.

Dr. McDonagh of N. Western has the latest up in the debate: she views abortion not as a right to choose but a right to consent (1). I was unsurprised that she directly attacked the portion of Dr. Beckwith's book Defending Life in this regard.

Dr. Beckwith again brought up his conclusion that pregnancy is a prima facie good and argued back against Dr. McDonagh to that end.

In another article (2), "Consent, Sex and the Prenatal Rapist", he brought up that the telos (ends or purpose) of reproductive organs are reproduction (p. 11). I'm surprised he did not explicitly bring up this point again in the first linked article (1).

However, I propose that pregnancy is to maintained for the survival of the preborn boy or girl despite the fact that the mother does not consent to (a) the presence of said preborn and (b) the continuation of the pregnancy for another reason.

(1) Pregnancy is the natural and ordinary means (opposed to extraordinary means; a search is here of ordinary/extraordinary means) of survival for the preborn person (assume with Dr. McDonagh that a preborn human is a person). The above fact is independent of how the preborn person becomes present within the woman's body.

(2) In agreement with Dr. McDonagh, a woman is sovereign ruler of her body.

Consider scenario A.

There is country C that is ruled by monarch M. In country C, monarch M naturally controls all the means of production MP for country C. There are subject(s) S of country C that are under the natural care and jurisdiction of monarch M.

The only way that subject(s) S is/are able to survive is through monarch M providing the fruits F of the means of production MP for country C. Therefore, it is the duty of monarch M to provide said fruits F. Fruits F include shelter, food, and water which are all ordinary means of survival.


Consider scenario B.

In a spacecraft S that is solely under the jurisdiction of captain C, there is a reversibly-comatose homeless woman HW that was picked up off the street. She is sent up a futuristic elevator E from Earth that goes to spacecraft S. Through a feeding tube that goes up elevator E, homeless woman HW is fed and hydrated. Air is circulated up from Earth through elevator E.

The only way that homeless woman HW can survive is if she is fed, hydrated, and provided with air through elevator E that is solely under the jurisdiction of captain C. Therefore, it is the duty of captain C to provide shelter, food, and water which are all ordinary means of survival.

Basically the argument is this:
(I) The ordinary means of survival are food, water, and shelter.
(II) It is the duty of society to provide ordinary means of survival to its members.
(III) The only person that can provide the ordinary means of survival to a preborn girl or boy is a pregnant woman.
(IV) It is the duty of a pregnant woman to provide ordinary means of survival to a preborn girl or boy.

As a side note, the arguments of Dr. Jarvis, Boonin, et al. largely rest on the need to provide extraordinary means which are not central to the issue of pregnancy (ordinary means) at hand.

Please let me know what you think of the scenarios and argument. Thanks.
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UPDATE (23 June 2010):
I have an update to the above argument here. I think it's a stronger argument.

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