People act as if there is no connection between sex and babies, such that when they get pregnant they have the right to abort their baby because they didn’t want a baby. Amy Hall observed that this is like thinking there is no connection between food and calories. The fact of the matter is that if you eat too much, you’ll get fat. That’s the natural consequence of eating too much. You can’t choose to eat without also consenting to the calories. Likewise, each time we engage in sex, we consent to the possibility of creating a child because that is what the act is designed to do.
March 30, 2022
Sex creates babies
Posted by Theosophical Ruminator under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics[8] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
March 30, 2022 at 1:04 pm
putting aside the morality of pre marital sex —– there are very effective methods of birth control that prevent sperm meeting egg. so the real question is why arent people using these methods ? they arent complicated to use and it’s not a matter of ignorance these days so a logical conclusion is they dont see abortion as a big deal due to pro-choice propaganda.
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April 22, 2022 at 1:25 pm
“so the real question is why arent people using these methods ? they arent complicated to use and it’s not a matter of ignorance these days so a logical conclusion is they dont see abortion as a big deal due to pro-choice propaganda.”
On the contrary, in most places in the US the reason so many people don’t use contraception is largely because of Christian pressure not to teach sex education in schools. The most religious regions suffer elevated levels of teen pregnancy simply because kids are taught abstinence only instead of including proper birth control. This is also why religious communities have higher abortion rates. Secular communities have lower teen pregnancy and lower abortion rates, because informed kids make more informed decisions.
https://datadrivenviewpoints.com/2013/06/18/teen-pregnancy-and-the-bible-belt/
Furthermore, having the right to an abortion doesn’t make abortions more attractive. Nobody WANTS women to have abortions, but most want them to have the right to have one if they so choose. I worked briefly at a Planned Parenthood, and they were extremely proactive about birth control. Abortion was the method of last resort. Yet so many Christians demonize PP over abortions, ignoring the important work they do to provide women (and men) with birth control education and options, as well as other women’s health issues.
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April 22, 2022 at 1:37 pm
“Amy Hall observed that this is like thinking there is no connection between food and calories. The fact of the matter is that if you eat too much, you’ll get fat.”
Except that nobody uses religious dogma to force people to remain overweight. If a person wants to lose weight, that’s their choice, when and how they want.
It appears that most religious people don’t really think a fertilized egg is a baby. When asked a hypothetical scenario meant to test that claim, that reality becomes clear:
You are in a burning fertility clinic and only have time to save either an infant in a crib or a vat of 1,000 fertilized eggs, but not both. Which do you save?
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April 27, 2022 at 8:16 am
lol ….. the evidence shows young people understand where babies come from even if Christians are pressuring schools to not teach sex education. but im 62 and we were taught sex education in health class in the early teen yrs. it’s Christians — it’s nwo cre cre like you that have removed the sacred from the sexual act. the vast majority of Christians i know have no problem with teaching age appropriate children human reproduction they just dont want the down side ignored.
a big part of the problem is girls want to get pregnant today — the stigma of being an unwed mother “bastard child” has been replaced with praise.
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April 27, 2022 at 8:18 am
should be …….. “it’s NOT Christians”
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April 27, 2022 at 7:37 pm
Derekmathias,
Opposition to abortion is not based on religious presuppositions. That’s why atheists can be (and are) pro-life as well.
And you are missing the point about the food comparison. The point is that actions have known consequences. If you choose to do A, and you know that A leads to B, then you are tacitly consenting to B.
As for your hypothetical scenario, at best it would show that pro-life people are inconsistent. But even that’s not the case. If the scenario was save your own child or save your neighbor’s five children, pro-life people would choose their own child. The reason has to do with emotional attachment, not because they don’t think their neighbor’s kids are valuable human beings.
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April 29, 2022 at 11:45 am
derekmathias ……….. loves to make up silly 1 sided scenarios. you are correctly comparing apples to apples — as all 6 (your 1+ neighbors 5) are children.
the “vat of 1,000 fertilized eggs” are not even the same comparison as a fertilized egg in a womb.
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May 21, 2022 at 6:33 am
“Opposition to abortion is not based on religious presuppositions. That’s why atheists can be (and are) pro-life as well.”
That can be true…but there is a direct correlation between abortion opposition and religious fundamentalism. And the vast majority of atheists are pro-choice.
“And you are missing the point about the food comparison. The point is that actions have known consequences. If you choose to do A, and you know that A leads to B, then you are tacitly consenting to B.”
I have to disagree. We live with risk every day, yet we aren’t in any way tacitly or otherwise consenting to the consequences. For example, we drive to see movies, even though we know there’s a risk of dying in a car accident. We eat at restaurants, even though we know there’s a risk of food poisoning. We seek sex, even though we know there is a risk of pregnancy. We do such things not because we are consenting to getting in an accident, getting food poisoning or getting knocked up, but because we assess that the expected reward is worth the smaller risk. Life is all about risk management.
And when we suffer the consequences of playing the odds and lose, do we expect people to suffer the consequences? If it’s a criminal act, sure…but if you crash your car or get food poisoning, you receive medical treatment. Pregnancy can also be an unintended consequence that deserves medical attention.
The problem with Amy Hall’s quote is that it’s not a comparable risk assessment situation. Food directly converts to calories when consumed; eat high-calorie food to excess and you will gain weight. However, with sex it’s possible to have sex to excess and never cause a pregnancy. And if you eat too much, gain weight, then want to lose it, you are free to choose to do that, even if you resort to a medical solution. You don’t have to live with the consequences. To be comparable to the abortion issue, it would be as if once you’ve gained weight you are not allowed to lose it.
“As for your hypothetical scenario, at best it would show that pro-life people are inconsistent. But even that’s not the case. If the scenario was save your own child or save your neighbor’s five children, pro-life people would choose their own child. The reason has to do with emotional attachment, not because they don’t think their neighbor’s kids are valuable human beings.”
But I didn’t say the child was YOUR child in the thought experiment. It’s just a random baby and those are random frozen embryos. See, this is what inevitably happens with this question: the forced-birth person starts adding conditions to justify saving the baby over the embryos. But if they really believed that frozen embryos are persons just as much as a born baby is, then it would be a simple solution to save the embryos.
If one is honest with oneself, it’s clear that a sperm cell is less of a person than a fertilized egg, which is less of a person than an embryo, which is less of a person than a fetus, which is less of a person than a born baby. Once a baby is no longer dependent on a direct connection to the mother’s body, it’s a full, independent person who deserves the full rights of personhood.
61% of Americans approve of abortion rights, according to the latest Pew poll (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/ ), but people draw the line at different stages of the reproductive process. For some, it’s at conception, for others it’s sometime after birth (weirdly, both of these extremes are biblical positions). This is because reproduction is an analog process with no clear point or even definition of personhood. This is why I think the pro-choice position is the reasonable one, rather than forcing everyone to adhere to one necessarily arbitrary position or another. And shouldn’t a woman be able to make choices about her own healthcare, rather than be forced to become a gestation machine against her will?
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