Comment by shepherdjerred | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shepherdjerred | Hacker News Reader

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My view is that fetuses are people.

> Does a pregnant woman somehow magically lose rights once she becomes pregnant? If the answer is yes, pregnant women do lose rights, then how much?

Nobody is losing rights. Nobody has the right to end the life of another barring cases like self-defense.

The mother made a choice (ignoring cases of rape) to have sex which could, even with contraceptives, lead to the outcome pregnancy.

> What weight do you put on the rights of a hypothetical person-to-be compared to a fully alive not at all hypothetical pregnant woman?

IMO, both parties deserve to live. If a fetus threatens the mother it should be terminated for her health. If the fetus doesn't, then the mother shouldn't (morally) have an abortion.

> The answer is the pregnant woman. She is the one who deserves to live, every time, full stop.

You're missing the point of my question about "who deserves to live". Should we encourage abortions for single mothers because their child might not have a happy life? Should we abort fetuses who have some disability? I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born, would prefer to live regardless of circumstance.

> I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born, would prefer to live regardless of circumstance.

Sure, but if you wait ~5 seconds when trying to conceive a child then that first potential person won't exist and a different one will instead (different genetics and subtly different environments). We always and continuously make choices about which (and whether) potential individuals will actually exist.

As a fetus ages its expectation of existing in the future increases over time but never to the extent that its' mother expects to exist, so expected utility of mothers exceeds fetuses in every scenario.

If we had magical technology we'd simply instantiate all the possible people from scratch and let them enjoy preferring to live. As it is we have to choose the best limited set of individuals who get to exist, and part of that means not allowing a slave class to exist whose sole or primary purpose is reproduction to the exclusion of their own happiness and agency.

> Nobody is losing rights. Nobody has the right to end the life of another barring cases like self-defense.

The common example of the violinist analogy disagrees here. You are under no obligation to provide continuing physical support to another person, even one everyone agrees is fully grown/sentient/alive/etc. Similarly, you are under no obligation to donate your liver/kidney/blood, even if you already promised to do so, even if not doing so will cause someone's death. In every case except abortion, we respect medical bodily autonomy to an extreme degree. And indeed in other cases we often find it immoral to force someone to assist a family member's survival on an ongoing basis (see "Savior Siblings").

> I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born, would prefer to live regardless of circumstance.

Not always, lots of people desire medically assisted suicide. Blanket assuming that everyone desires to live regardless of circumstance is factually incorrect.

> And indeed in other cases we often find it immoral to force someone to assist a family member's survival on an ongoing basis.

This is incorrect. Parents have a duty to care of their children. Parents whose children die because of parental neglect end in prison.

No parent has been convicted of neglect for not donating organs or blood to their children. They haven’t even been charged because it’s literally not a crime. This comment makes zero sense.

“ to assist a family member's survival on an ongoing basis” is literally what parents are expected to do.

My dead body has more rights than a pregnant woman. Even after death, I have final say in how my organs are used and I can decline to let anyone have them.

"My view is that fetuses are people."

So you're fine with early term abortion, at least up until week 9.

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