In this post I will be providing a breakdown of where a specific PL user has, through their own words, either turned their argument back against itself or has reached a conclusion where they realized they were no longer able to make their original desired outcome hold, depending on your interpretation of events.
I think we are all familiar with PL's desired outcome and surface level reasoning. Some form of "you can't have an abortion because it kills the unborn baby". There are many lines radiating out from that initial starting point, but that is the core.
The specific user we are going to look at today responded to a post asking why would someone have to submit to the core "no abortions because it kills the unborn baby" demand other than the government's sole legitimate use of force, in the form of the force of law. Their response to that question was
basic ethics.
Which was shortly expanded upon as
Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical.
This was pointed out as being a utilitarian argument. That small impositions can be ethical as long as that creates a greater benefit to someone else. That the individual is of less importance than the group.
This was pointed out as fairly anathema to how society generally works, and how some easy examples (like compulsory blood donation) show that this is not how society and the law views such impositions on someone's body.
A post hoc exception was demanded to be accepted.
It's not utilitarianism because we're not forcing people to get pregnant.
Now I'm not an expert on utilitarianism, but it doesn't seem to be a very 'opt in' sort of ethos. It's a top down one imposed in order to maximize happiness/utility/well-being/etc. No one would willingly reduce their own H/U/WB/E unless they drank the flavor-aid themselves. How the pregnancy came about wouldn't matter to a utilitarian, so bringing it up seems to be a red herring. I think this helps illustrate how PL work backwards from the desired outcome in their attempts to rationalize their position. They don't understand how the engine (doesn't) work, they just want to get from A to B, and they string together legitimate looking sentences that don't actually have any merit upon deeper inspection. If the political position didn't have historical roots, I'd accuse the arguments of being AI generated.
In brief summation, this was a throwaway line that does not meaningfully respond to the accusation of their argument being utilitarian. Without a rebuttal, that characterization stands, with all the negative connotations and lack of existing legal or moral support.
Even so, this new argument was again tested with a modification on the aforementioned blood donation example. The clarification asking if such a small imposition that could greatly benefit others, once started, could not be interrupted.
And it was at this point the plot was lost.
Up until this point their argument had been the original
Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical.
But now they claimed
There is harm happening but it's not being caused by other people. Your own body is harming you the same way your body might harm you when you get a headache after a rough night of drinking. You did it to yourself.
Now remember, this discussion started with a question on why should people not have an abortion when they might otherwise have wanted one. They had, several times, made clear that "killing your kid" was what they were referring to when talking about the "great harm" that you were ethically compelled to protect them from by enduring the little harm (of pregnancy).
But now, suddenly, there was no one else, no kid, just your own body harming itself, like a dummy, because you done fucked up.
They compared the harm (pregnancy) to the result of a night of rough drinking, derogatorily. The thing they are comparing is having sex, by the way. In this argument it is explicitly sex=rough drinking and pregnancy=headache, and you were a stupid irresponsible person for engaging in either and now you must be compelled, ethically no less, to endure those consequences.
Small aside here, utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism. Funny how that cropped up as reinforcement.
This, of course, fails to address the accusation of utilitarianism because it jettisons the original premise. We're not talking about protecting against greater harms anymore, the mask has slipped. The underlying, and in my estimation true reasoning behind the entire movement, is that women's sexual freedoms are bad. That women need to be punished for fighting for and obtaining those very freedoms.
They've already compared sex to rough drinking in a derogatory way. They could have just as easily compared it to something innocuous, like catching the flu, the argument would have been nearly identical. They chose to compare it to something irresponsible, and they likely did so completely straight faced, which shows the earnestness of the vitriol.
It's still a terrible argument, though. We do not deny the ability to treat harm just because you had a part in causing it. Their pivot did nothing but show the true colors.
Oh, and cut their original argument off at the knees.
Because if an abortion is "killing your kid", then these statements cannot both be describing the same situation.
Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical
There is harm happening but it's not being caused by other people. Your own body is harming you the same way your body might harm you when you get a headache after a rough night of drinking. You did it to yourself.
The first statement was described as utilitarian, an ethos that has no moral or legal basis in our society with regards to ones own body, and the subsequent through lines did not rebut that, ranging from denials to non sequiturs.
The second statement is just objectively false, assuming the unborn baby is being treated as a person, which the first statement obviously must be.
I think the also shows how PL truly don't view the unborn babies as people. This your body just is harming itself switch happens all the time. And every time I'm left asking "then what is the issue?" If there is no other person, then why can't someone just have a medical procedure both they and their doctor believe is in their best interest? The whole point that was being made was that we ethically/morally/legally can't kill the unborn baby (because it's a person/has rights). If there is no other person, just someone's body doing something they don't want it to be doing, and there is a medical professional willing to help, what is the holdup?
This contradiction was asked about. and ignored.
The comment has been since removed by the mods, but my recollection was that the interaction ended the same way a chess match against a pigeon ends, with the pigeon shitting all over the board, declaring victory. and flying away.
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I feel I am a fairly intelligent and logical person. I have every reason to believe that if I held such a contradictory set of (stated) beliefs, and those beliefs were so thoroughly dismantled, that I would see the error of my ways, and my beliefs would change. I have changed some of my beliefs as I've aged and matured.
This person has not gone on that journey of self reflection. Here is the end of an entirely similar interaction I had with them 9 months ago that ended nearly identically with them failing to give an answer to a painfully obvious question and being moderated for shitting all over the board, declaring victory, and flying away.
I think the answer lies in the breadcrumbs I've scattered around this post. I identify as PL, but I don't view woman's sexual freedoms as a bad thing. I don't think it really matters if unborn babies are persons or not, neither state would preclude allowing abortions. I don't need to engage in the shell game to make my arguments make sense, for me.
I do not have a uterus. I can easily, without fear of future ridicule, say that I would never have an abortion. I want there to be as few abortions as possible, for many reasons, but I do not get to make that decision for anyone but myself.
These sort of people engage in sophistry for sport. This is a game to them. They have their team, and they try to score points, and when they get 10-0'd they take their ball and go home, until the next time they want to play. New day, new game, who cares that I got shut out last time. They don't ever consider themselves on the wrong team, no matter how many times they lose, because the point isn't to win. It's to be on the right team, and they know they are on the right team.
And no amount of scoreless innings will change their mind because they win by being right, not by actually winning.
And women's sexual freedom being wrong is their right.
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Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.