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Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

Hot take, of course, but I think pro-choice ethical vegans and (very) pro-life meat eaters have a more interesting paradox.

What interesting thing about a honey bee or fish deserves protection that isn't true of a fairly young human fetus? And, likewise, what's true of a young fetus that does not apply to a pig or octopus on the pro-life side?

There are clearly religious answers to some of the paradox on all sides of things, but I'm sure not all of us find them convincing.

EDIT: There is probably a more acute detachment/skin-in-the-game distinction to be made in this case, if we can suspend our politics for a moment, which might be asking a lot these days, perhaps.

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If a fish were living inside your body, you'd have the right to expel it, too. That has nothing to do with the treatment fish deserve or don't deserve, and everything to do with human bodily autonomy.

I could see a libertarian principle, but most pro-choice people aren't exactly against seatbelt laws or opting out of national health services. So this is a principle, but generally a selectively applied one. Which was my point.

EDIT: What part of this is getting downvotes? I'm honestly curious for a distinction here.

Expel a fish? Sure. Expel a fish even if it kills the fish? Still, sure.

Expel a human even if it kills the human? That's a tougher sell. And that's always been the problem. Yell as much as you want about "a woman's right to her own body", but there's something there besides her body, something that is 1) still genetically human, 2) genetically different from the mother, and 3) will die if expelled by the methods used. It's not just the woman's body.

I think of it in terms of the Declaration of Independence: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Well here, "life" is at war with "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in a way where, whichever one wins, the other has to lose.

If a homeless person was living in your home, even if you invited him there in the first place, you still have every right to kick him out of your home if you decide you don't want him there anymore. Even if it's winter, and he'll die of starvation or freeze out on the streets without your hospitality. It may be a cruel and heartless thing to do, but it's perfectly legal, and should remain so. I believe we should have at least as much autonomy over our own bodies as over our real estate.

All right, what if the only way you can get the homeless person to leave is to murder him and then remove the body? Do your real estate rights give you the right to do that? Because, bluntly, that's the way abortion (almost always) works - you kill the fetus and then remove it, or at least kill it in the process of removing it.

If sex had a chance to cause a honey bee to grow in one's body over 9 months and resulted in many years of a full commitment of one's life, mind, and resources, I don't think people who respect bees would be hypocritical in killing a bee. Conversely, babies have potential that animals do not, and humans have inherent value to us, both practically and psychologically, that animals do not, so I think it's not hypocritical for somebody who kills pigs to refrain from killing a baby.

No offense, seriously, but the analogy seems simplistic to the point where it needs some kind of complete rework to produce an interesting question.

So, barring metaphysical axioms about the intrinsic worth of humanity, we measure worth by utility?

The utility answer resolves some of the tension, but it doesn't address what happens when an animal might have more utility than a human. What about protecting endangered rhinos versus viable fetuses with severe but nonterminal developmental issues?

Not really a rhetorical question, by the way, the Down's Syndrome population is way down and not because we cured Down's Syndrome.

I think the conflict would be greater for an anti-choice ethical vegan. You can't force a cow to produce milk, but you can force a woman to incubate a baby?

I get the libertarian position. Though we force women to wear seatbelts and wear motorcycle helmets, which is just as much about bodily autonomy.

I'm not making a libertarian argument. I'm arguing that forcing a woman to go through pregnancy is similar to the things ethical vegans are against doing to animals. I don't think ethical vegans are against using safety equipment when transporting animals.

No, I'm saying we don't respect bodily autonomy generally in the case of seat belt laws, but that is just an example. A women has to put a seat belt on her body whether she wants to or not. That's a government intervention into something less complicated than pregnancy.

I didn't say anything about bodily autonomy or government intervention. What does that have to do with ethical veganism? I'm only saying that not hurting women by forcing them to carry a fetus to term is consistent with the vegan ethic of not hurting animals.

> You can't force a cow to produce milk, but you can force a woman to incubate a baby? reply

The use of the word "force" is the key word here. Who is doing the forcing? Who should be making the decisions about what happens to the body?

That's the autonomy question.

Yes, you can easily turn this into an autonomy question. But you're missing the point I'm making. Suppose you instead asked how pacifists can be in favor of laws restricting assault and battery, as this is like waging war against batterers.

I'd rightly point out that pacifists don't tend to like people getting hurt, and battery hurts people. You could turn this into a bodily autonomy question and point out that we violate autonomy with seatbelts so why not violate the autonomy of the punched, but that would be missing my point. Pacifists aren't all about bodily autonomy, they're concerned about not hurting people.

Similarly, I'm saying here that vegans should be against forced continuation of pregnancy, regardless of who's doing the forcing or who has control of your bodily autonomy. Vegans are against egg farming regardless of who the farmer is. Who gets to make decisions about the chicken is a different question than whether this particular decision should be allowed.

Note that I'm not making an argument for or against abortion. I'm only pointing out that being pro-choice seems to be more in line with vegan ethics than being anti-choice. I don't think vegan ethics are based on bodily autonomy arguments, so it's weird you that you keep bringing it up. Vegans aren't primarily concerned about bodily autonomy. Their concern is about not hurting animals. Humans are animals too, so vegans shouldn't want women to be hurt regardless of how the government works.

If the argument that honey is a product of sentient creatures, then so is dirt.

All plants derive from dirt, an animal product of worms.

Does this means vegans ought to starve?

Veganism is a spectrum. Some are fine with honey, others find it exploitive. The interesting thing to me is the principle that is so important to warrant a conspicuous lifestyle change and how it maps to other issues.

I think the most common goal of vegan or vegetarian diets is to reduce animal suffering, not to eliminate any part of your life that is even adjacent to animals. As you've pointed out, the latter would be impossible.

In my experience vegans and vegetarians generally don't think any killing of suffering beings is automatically wrong, we think killing them when alternatives exist is wrong...

And in the case that mother and fetus are healthy, there are at least two alternatives to abortion.

Adoption and...? Sorry, I'm drawing a blank on what the second alternative would be.

Not the OP but I believe the second option would be raising the child.

Well, cool, that's where the disagreement is. If some woman I don't know says there's no alternative, I'm going to believe her because I don't know her.

What are the alternatives to abortion if the problem is not the child existing but the birthing process? (Serious question. I'm aware birthing has a fairly high chance of permanent damage to the birther, and I was under the impression the abortion isn't to avoid raising a child but to avoid the damage caused by birthing.)

>What are the alternatives to abortion.

Raise it yourself or put it up for adoption are the first two options that come to mind if the resulting child is the problem.

C-section or risk popping it out the normal hole are the obvious alternatives if medical complications are the problem.

Personally I don't have a problem with abortion but if you want alternatives then there you are.

I understand you may have missed my question. Please allow me to repeat it with emphasis on the part you may have missed.

What are the alternatives to abortion if the problem is not the child existing but the birthing process?

>What are the alternatives to abortion if the problem is not the child existing but the birthing process?

1. C-section.

2. Do nothing and let the thing come out the existing hole knowing full well that one of the side effects may be death of the mother, infant or both.

In this day and age the latter really isn't an option that's seriously on the table but back in the day abortions/c-sections weren't really a thing or were more risky and you couldn't tell in advance if there would be complications so that risk was just accepted.

Edit: FWIW I am pro-choice (since apparently we can't have a discussion about alternatives to abortion without assuming other people's opinions on the issues).

Neither of these are alternatives if birthing is the problem, as they are both births.

Also, abortions weren't really a thing? Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure it's only recently[1] that abortions were distinctly not a thing.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion

Ah, so who is going to force the C-section/normal birth to happen? The authorities, with guns? If that scene is ok with someone, that's where I'd disagree with them, because it's clearly cruel.

There's countless situations where I could judge someone's behavior as a thing they should never do, even though I'm not in their shoes, but this isn't one of them. If a mother wants to abort, that's just on her! Maybe the suffering of the fetus is tragic, but it's all her choice and I can't really judge her because I'm not her. I accept I can't prevent every bad or possibly bad outcome and end all suffering.

Edit: I appreciate dialog on the specifics of these things. I think people just... assume that because they're all on the same "side" they come to the same beliefs and conclusions from the same reasoning (or that everyone around them has a reasoning to begin with) and that can end up causing huge problems.

Since when are we talking about forcing anyone to do anything? Someone asked for alternatives and I presented them.

The grandparent post which set the context for this discussion made a specific comparison between pro choice vegans and pro life meat eaters.

Lots of people have an abortion and then later have children. Their motivation is not to avoid damage but to delay becoming a parent for financial reasons.

I think it takes a particularly skilled mental gymnast to have an abortion for financial reasons and then turn around to say we shouldn't eat honey because we're exploiting the bees.

That is to say, I'm far more sympathetic to an argument from a vegan who also happens to be pro life, as that seems to me like the more consistent position: pro human and pro animal life.

That's more or less where I am though consistently libertarian ethical veganism makes sense too.

"I don't eat meat or abort fetuses, but I don't want laws or norms saying we can't either." There's no serious ban in meat being discussed.

"Pro life" is a feel good yet entirely inaccurate euphemism for "anti choice." One can find something unethical yet not want to ban other people from doing it. For example, I find both meat eating and religion unethical but I don't wish to stop others from eating meat or going to church.

>Lots of people have an abortion and then later have children.

Later? The majority of women who have abortions are already mothers. [1]

[1] https://www.guttmacher.org/united-states/abortion

What "serious chance of permanent damage to the birther"? Down-thread, you make it clear that you're not talking about something that a C-section can prevent. What are you talking about?

We are aware that birthing causes a permanent change to the body in terms of bone calcium, along with things like tearing(which is really common), hormonal changes, etc. I also should note I consider C-sections to be serious damage, as it results in the cutting of the abdominal muscles and uterus, which can result in weakness later on.

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