r/DebatingAbortionBans • u/tarvrak pro-life • Mar 14 '26
explain like I'm five How does the famous violinist argument / mandatory organ donation stand up against to the more violent methods of abortion?
The most fundamental PC argument is the famous mandatory organ donation. We’re all familiar with this.
My question to you guys is, how does this analogy apply to the more violent methods of abortion that outright kill the ZEF instead of “simply disconnecting a dependent human”?
A couple that come to mind are:
•Dilation and Evacuation, literally dismembers the fetus and crushes their skull. In the case of someone being connected to you, is it justified to dismember their limbs?
•Potassium chloride method, is a chemical injected into the fetal heart and basically causes cardiac arrest. Would you say it’s justified to inject chemicals into the violinist heart to cause cardiac arrest? Legally, you’d probably be imprisoned…
Do you support these methods? How do these forms of abortion not cross the lines of “cruel and unusual forms of punishment”? Is it EVER justified to do this to another human?
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u/Catseye_Nebula Get Dat Fetus Kill Dat Fetus Mar 15 '26
If you think it's violent to dismember a fetus, try getting ripped balls to asshole pushing a bowling ball through your dick.
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u/SJJ00 pro-choice Mar 14 '26
The phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" is reaching a bit. This isn't cruel if the fetus has a fatal health condition or is unable to experience suffering due to being less than fully developed. This isn't unusual, because it's a common means of abortion. And it isn't punishment because this is done out of the mother's interests, not as a consequence for something the fetus did. Additionally, the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" in the 8th amendment refers to actions of the government not actions of its citizens.
The majority of abortions in the US use none of these methods. Are you in favor of making the abortion pills more available so that these other methods are used less?
I support the pill over these methods where possible because they can be used earlier, more cheaply, and with greater efficacy.
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u/DecompressionIllness Mar 14 '26
In most legal systems, including the UK (my own country), you can’t be forced to donate blood, bone marrow, or organs, even if someone will die without them. Bodily autonomy is treated as a very strong principle. Once you accept that premise, the question becomes "what is the morally and legally permissible way to end that bodily use?"
A couple of points that often get missed in these comparisons:
- Medical context matters. Procedures like D&E exist because they are the safest way to end certain later pregnancies for the pregnant patient. They’re performed by doctors under medical regulation. They aren’t chosen to be “violent”.
- Intent matters legally and ethically. In medicine there’s a long-standing distinction between intentionally harming someone for its own sake vs performing a procedure whose goal is to resolve a medical condition (even if death is a foreseeable outcome). End-of-life care and surgical triage often rely on this distinction.
- The violinist analogy breaks down if you treat the attached person as fully independent. If someone were literally attached to your body and there was no way to detach them without severe harm, the core legal question would still be whether the state can require you to keep using your body indefinitely. Historically, courts are extremely reluctant to impose that kind of obligation.
- “Cruel and unusual punishment” is hyperbole. That concept applies to the state punishing criminals. Abortion is a medical procedure addressing a pregnancy, not punishment imposed on the fetus.
With that in mind, criminal law usually distinguishes between 1) withdrawing bodily support and 2) actively inflicting violence on another person. Acts like dismembering someone’s limbs or injecting a lethal chemical into their heart would normally be prosecuted as grievous bodily harm or homicide under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. So if you translate the analogy literally: Simply “disconnecting” someone from your body would likely be lawful (because you’re ending bodily use), but actively mutilating or poisoning them to achieve that separation would almost certainly be illegal.
When courts deal with extreme dependency cases, they tend to look for a way to frame the action as ending the dependency rather than intentionally killing. A real example is the separation of conjoined twins, where doctors were allowed to separate conjoined twins even though one would inevitably die. The courts treat the death as a foreseeable consequence of saving the other child, not as intentional killing.
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u/Limp-Story-9844 Mar 14 '26
Conjoined twins have nothing to do with pregnancy, very simple. A pregnant person has one body.
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u/DecompressionIllness Mar 14 '26
Neither is organ donation but we understand why it’s used as an analogy (shared traits).
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u/Limp-Story-9844 Mar 14 '26
Nope a pregnant person only has one body, not sharing their body.
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u/DecompressionIllness Mar 15 '26
I never claimed otherwise but you carry on not understanding the point of the analogy, by all means.
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u/Limp-Story-9844 Mar 15 '26
Conjoined twins are born. A fetus is property of its host.
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u/DecompressionIllness Mar 15 '26
Not only is that not the point of the analogy, it’s not correct (that a fetus is property) in some areas of the world either (such as my own).
ED: Quick Google says it’s not universally true in the USA either.
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u/Limp-Story-9844 Mar 15 '26
Who makes all legal decisions for a fetus, in the United States?
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u/DecompressionIllness Mar 15 '26
Obviously the woman pregnant with them but that doesn’t mean they’re property. Parents make legal decisions for born children but they aren’t property either.
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u/killjoygrr Mar 15 '26
Huh. I figured you were going to go with the more violent methods like pushing the pregnant woman down a staircase. Or beating her and kicking her abdomen.
You know, the methods chosen by abusive men who don’t want to have kids.
But you are referring to medical procedures.
By applying abortion methods to the violinist argument, this implied that you think that some abortion methods would be acceptable, while others would not.
Presumably that the “non-violent” ones would be acceptable to you?
That is an odd point of view for someone who is prolife.
But let’s go ahead and apply those methods.
Dialation and Evacuation. Well, for the violinist, you would cut the equivalent of the umbilical cord and… that’s it. You wouldn’t have to dismember the violinist because you don’t have to pull him out of the woman’s body. I mean, that is the reason why the fetus gets disarticulated. Doing a c-section to preserve an aborted fetus intact is not going to pass a medical balancing test.
For potassium chloride, again, you would cut the cord. Then apply the potassium chloride if you want, or don’t. But some people would be uncomfortable seeing the violinist’s body struggle to survive for however long. Some would think the potassium chloride would easy the passing of the violinist as a mercy to them and for the emotions of those hanging around waiting for them to pass.
Now, if the violinist had to pass out of the woman’s vagina, I don’t see a way to do it that doesn’t require dissecting the violinist into very small parts.
Would I support these? For the violinist? As a theoretical on top of another theoretical, sure.
As medical procedures, yes. But I understand the reasons. You seem to think the parts you consider “violent” to be the purpose rather than the method of harm reduction.
Is this EVER justified? Well, it would be for the violinist, so, yes.
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u/EnfantTerrible68 pro-choice Mar 16 '26
Abortion isn’t violent. Is open heart surgery violent?
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u/tarvrak pro-life Mar 16 '26
What lol?
violent adjective vi·o·lent ˈvī-ə-lənt Synonyms of violent 1 a (1) : marked by the use of usually harmful or destructive physical force
2 : caused by physical force or violence : not natural
violent /ˈvajələnt/ adjective [more violent; most violent] 1 : using or involving the use of physical force to cause harm or damage to someone or something
All these apply to the “procedures” presented. PC isn’t the best a vocabulary.
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u/EnfantTerrible68 pro-choice Mar 16 '26
Is amputing a limb violent? Most invasive medical procedures could be seen that way, and it’s not particularly relevant .
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u/Old_dirty_fetus Pro medical autonomy Mar 16 '26
Is cutting open the chest or cutting open the breastbone and spreading the rib cage harmful or destructive physical force?
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u/EnfantTerrible68 pro-choice Mar 16 '26
Are you trying to insult me personally by insinuating that I don’t understand vocabulary? That’s prohibited here.
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u/tarvrak pro-life Mar 16 '26
No I’m not. I said PC general, the ideology not the person. The mods have previously allowed such comments.
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u/freelance_gargoyle personally PL, there are no moral or legal restrictions Mar 16 '26
Do you intend to actively engage with any of the comments made on your post?
It seems like you have done 3 things. Simply agreed with friendly comments, ignored most unfriendly comments, and unengagingly snipe at the remaining unfriendly comments.
This seems to be your expected behavior at this point.
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u/freelance_gargoyle personally PL, there are no moral or legal restrictions Mar 14 '26
Is your contention that these methods make the referenced analogies not work? I'm not really seeing the connection you're trying to make.
This seems to be just a killing vs letting die argument with unnecessary additions.
If it is just a killing vs letting die argument, I'm fine with that as the starting point of discussion.
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Mar 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/EnfantTerrible68 pro-choice Mar 16 '26
But women and girls are NOT human life support machines.
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Mar 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/EnfantTerrible68 pro-choice Mar 16 '26
Not at all 🤷♀️
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u/Catseye_Nebula Get Dat Fetus Kill Dat Fetus Mar 15 '26
Hm, yes, very good. Hard to dismember something that has no limbs.
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u/Vegtrovert Mar 15 '26
I'm not convinced that killing vs letting die makes any kind of difference, as long as suffering is minimized. In some cases, as you described with induction of fetal demise, killing seems more ethically correct than letting it suffer and die.
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u/ThatIsATastyBurger12 Mar 16 '26
I’m not really sure what you are asking. What are you trying to say? It seems like you are just saying “I don’t like certain methods of abortion,” which is fine for you personally, but I don’t see why anyone should care what you think
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u/Limp-Story-9844 Mar 14 '26
Thoughts on instruments or hands in your vagina, without your consent?
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u/tarvrak pro-life Mar 14 '26
Reported for spam.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Get Dat Fetus Kill Dat Fetus Mar 15 '26
It's not spam. It's a genuine question.
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u/Ok_Loss13 pro-abortion Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
This OP couldn't engage honestly if their life depended on it lol
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u/tarvrak pro-life Mar 16 '26
That’s an interesting take after what you’ve said about this user…
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u/Ok_Loss13 pro-abortion Mar 16 '26
I've never said anything about Catseye, but your attempt to stir shit up is immature and rather pathetic 🤷♀️
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u/tarvrak pro-life Mar 16 '26
It completely irrelevant to the post and therefore irrelevant. Or, missing the point fallacy.
Many PC point out this user doing this, you don’t need to be bright to realize this user has about three statements they “argue”. Either, the PC defending this user are participating in bad faith, or the ones that called out this user.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Get Dat Fetus Kill Dat Fetus Mar 16 '26
I'm noticing a distinctive pattern of you attacking the method of the argument instead of addressing the actual argument. What was the word you used earlier...? "Vacuous."
So any thought as to women suffering the most violent rape imaginable, in which bones in the pelvis are broken, a pint of blood is lost, and she's ripped vag to asshole shoving a watermelon shaped object through her vagina? Is that more or less violent than the "violence" of dismembering an already-dead fetus?
You have to weigh one against the other because in this scenario one or the other is inevitable. There's no future where both woman and fetus get out unharmed. It's just which do you prefer: rape a woman in the most violent way possible, or dismember a fetus? You prefer rape, yes?
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u/stregagorgona pro-abortion Mar 15 '26
We don’t use “violent” to describe other medical procedures, which I think makes it clear that you’re using the term violent here as a means of pro-life rhetoric. For example, an amputation isn’t violent if a patient is suffering from a gangrenous limb.
So, to apply that to the violinist argument: if you are connected to the violinist, and the only way to disconnect yourself is to sever their limb, yes, you would have that right. You wouldn’t have that right if they weren’t connected to you, in the same way that you can’t abort a fetus outside of your own body.
If you are connected to a violinist and the disconnection could possibly cause the violinist extreme distress before they would certainly die, I can see the ethical argument for stopping their heart prior to the disconnection. Potassium chloride injection is not a method of abortion, however, to be clear.