u/Goatmommy

Saying consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, or allowing for exceptions for rape are fundamentally flawed arguments that undermine the prolife position.

The moral status of the child and the obligation of the parent do not depend on the circumstances of how the child was conceived. Once conception has taken place, a new human being exists with the same numerical identity, same DNA, and the same right to continued existence that any other human being has. That human being is not an aggressor. They are exactly where they are supposed to be in the ordinary biological process of reproduction.

If we say that a child conceived in rape has less right to life than a child conceived in a loving relationship, we are no longer grounding our position in the reality that human life begins at conception and that all human beings deserve equal moral consideration. We are instead making the value of the child depend on the actions or crimes of the father. This is inconsistent with the principle that the child’s humanity and rights are inherent from the moment they come into existence.

The same logic applies to the idea that consent to sex is consent to pregnancy. While it is true that people should be responsible for the natural consequences of their voluntary actions, this framing still treats the child’s right to life as something that depends on the mother’s consent or level of fault. But parental obligation is not based on whether the parent “consented” to the existence of the child. It is based on the fact that the child is their dependent offspring and requires ordinary care.

Consider that if a father causes conception due to a broken condom, he is still legally obligated to pay 18 years of child support simply because of his biological relationship to the child. His consent is irrelevant. Society correctly recognizes that his biological tie to the child creates a duty of support regardless of whether he wanted or consented to becoming a father. The same principle applies to the mother. Parental obligations flow from the biological relationship to the child, not from personal consent or the circumstances of conception.

A mother cannot withdraw ordinary care from her born child simply because she did not consent to becoming a parent. If she gives birth alone in the wilderness, she cannot refuse to breastfeed and let the newborn starve by saying “I didn’t consent to this.” The same principle holds before birth. The uterus exists for the purpose of sustaining new life. Gestation is ordinary care, not a punishment or a heroic sacrifice. The duty flows from the biological relationship between parent and child, not from the conditions surrounding conception.

Making exceptions for rape or tying the child’s right to life to the mother’s consent undermines the entire foundation of the prolife position. It shifts us away from the clear truth that every human being has the same fundamental right to exist regardless of how they were conceived, how developed they are, or where they are located. Either we accept that parents have a duty of ordinary care to their own dependent children at every stage of development, or we do not. We cannot have it both ways without falling into arbitrary and inconsistent reasoning.

The right to life does not depend on the circumstances of one’s creation. It depends on the fact that a new human being has come into existence.

Why abortion is immoral:

Human life begins at conception. That is when every person alive on earth today came into existence. When fertilization takes place, a new human organism, a member of the species Homo Sapiens, comes into existence and begins developing into a mature adult human.

The harm of being killed is that you lose your entire existence and future. This loss occurs no matter how old or developed you happen to be at the moment. So, if it’s wrong to kill someone now, it has been wrong to kill them the entire time they have been alive, because they are the same human being, with the same numerical identity, same dna, same past, and same future the whole time they are alive.

The entire notion of "personhood" is meaningless sophistry. Whether someone is killed one second before, or one second after someone arbitrarily declares they have achieved personhood, the result is the same: a human being loses their existence and future. That one second of further development is irrelevant.

Gestation is the ordinary biological function of the human body. It’s no different than digestion or respiration. It’s how we evolved to care for our children before they are born. It does impact the mother's organs because thats what those organs are for.The uterus is specifically designed to house and sustain another human being. To call that impacting organs as if it’s a malfunction or a violation is like saying that eating impacts the stomach or breathing impacts the lungs. Every stage of parenthood impacts your organs. Breastfeeding impacts the mammary glands and drains the mother’s calcium and nutrients. Chasing a toddler impacts the heart and musculoskeletal system.We don't define ordinary care by a lack of physical effort or bodily change. We define it as the provision of the baseline, non-extraordinary, biological necessities required to sustain the life and health of a dependent. The fact that the mother’s body is changing to support the life she created isn't a violation it’s the biological baseline of human reproduction.

It is ordinary care.

There is a distinction between ordinary care and extraordinary measures. Ordinary care includes what the body is biologically designed to do to sustain a child (gestation, breastfeeding, providing shelter/food). It is the baseline requirement of being a parent. Extraordinary measures includes invasive medical procedures like organ donation or blood transfusions. These are considered "heroic" because they involve a surgical or medical intervention that goes beyond the natural, evolved biological function.

When a child is in the womb the mother isn't "giving blood" or "donating organs" in a medical sense, the child is integrated into the mother's existing circulatory system via the placenta, a temporary organ created by the child and mother together. To stop this process requires a violent intervention (abortion).

The mothers body actively prepares for the embryo's arrival every month (the menstrual cycle). Her body is literally inviting the embryo to implant. A mother's body is designed to facilitate the growth of her child. Unlike a parasite, which only takes, there is a two way exchange between the mother and the fetus. This is a symbiotic biological process, not a parasitic one. If the fetus were a parasite, the mother’s immune system would treat it as a foreign invader and attack it immediately like it does with bacteria or a virus. Instead, the mother's body undergoes immunomodulation, a complex, regulated dampening of specific immune responses to protect the child.

On a global scale, including developing nations, the overall risk of dying from pregnancy complications is roughly 197 deaths per 100,000 live births (about a 0.2% absolute risk per pregnancy). We don't grant a right to kill a dependent based on a (very low statistical) possibility of danger. If a specific pregnancy becomes a life threatening medical emergency, then that is when it becomes a matter for triage and medical intervention. The possibility of a medical complication does not give a mother the right to kill a child who is currently causing no such complication.

Parents are morally obligated to provide ordinary care to their own children. The parental duty of care and the human rights of the child dont change based on age or location of the child. If you were the sole caregiver for a disabled toddler who needs constant attention, and you cant find another caregiver to transfer the care of the child to, you cant just abandon the toddler to die, or actively kill the toddler because the burden of caring for it is different than the burden of caring for other toddlers. You cant opt out of parenthood by killing your own helpless child.

If a mother gives birth all alone in the wilderness, she is obligated to use her body and organs (mammary glands) to provide ordinary care to her newborn by breastfeeding the child if it’s the only way to feed them. She can’t just watch her child starve to death by citing bodily autonomy without being guilty of neglect and also being a monster.

There is no way to argue that a mother has an obligation to use her body for the exact purpose it has evolved for to care for her born child but not her unborn child when it’s the same mother using her same body to care for her same child, without simply invoking subjective and arbitrary opinions about the degree of bodily use somehow justifying one but not the other.

If you believe parents ever have an obligation to care for their children, then you can’t argue the age of the child matters without violating the principle that belief is based on.

You can’t just call your own helpless child who is living exactly where they are supposed to be as part of the biological process of reproduction that your own body initiated an intruder and then kill them. Once conception takes place, a new human being (a child) comes into existence and deserves the same moral consideration of any other child because they are literally the same thing: human beings in an early stage of development.

Human beings have evolved to have dependent children and to use our bodies to care for them. The survival of our entire species depends on this process.

We ourselves were once dependent children and since we value our lives, and don’t want to have been killed when we were younger, we are morally obligated to not kill our own dependent children.

Why abortion is illogical:

Implementing a policy allowing abortion in order to protect the rights of a pregnant woman is a logical contradiction because we would be implementing a policy that also would have allowed killing that same woman when she was younger. You can’t have rights if you’re dead.

You can’t protect a person’s rights by allowing that same person to have been killed when they were younger and thus depriving them of all their rights.

A woman's right to continue living supersedes her right to have an abortion.

The only logical moment to grant a person the right to exist is at conception because that is when they become a human being, which is the kind of being we give human rights to and the right to exist is the fundamental right that all other rights depend on.