NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/talk/abortion/53654

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-30 | 7.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!destroyer!ncar!noao!amethyst!organpipe.uug.arizona.edu!news
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Matheson)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Slavery Analogy
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Dec 92 02:36:35 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group
Lines: 175

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (J H Woodyatt):
> [e-mail] (Gregg Skinner) writes:

[alas...deletia]

> # A difference that has been noted by many, including myself, is the
> # position of the fetus inside a woman's body.  Simply noting the
> # difference is not enough, though.
>
> I haven't dwelled on this difference because I don't think it's as
> significant as the primary difference I see that people don't consider
> fetuses to be persons, but people did (and still do where slavery is
> practiced) consider slaves to be persons

They did?  They do?  Are you sure?  How do you know?
BTW, I'm full of questions because I'm genuinely curious, and a little
bit skeptical.

> -- just persons without some/any individual rights.  I will continue below.

Did/do slaveholders really make this distinction?  Even if they did,
what is the difference between a person without rights and a non-person?
It sounds basically semantic to me.  If one could be a person without any
rights, than I guess I shouldn't get so worked up over the title "Animals
Are People Too" (title of a book I saw recently...).

> #                                   The difference must be demonstrated
> # relevant to the conclusion drawn by the analogy.  In this case the
> # analogy was used to derive the following conclusion:
> #
> #      If the argument
> #
> #          "If you don't like abortion, don't have one."
> #
> #      is a valid one for keeping abortion legal, then
> #
> #          "If you don't like slavery, don't keep a slave."
> #
> #      is a valid argument for legalized slavery.

The analogy is perfect.  The second statement is considered outrageous
because slavery is understood to be an unconscionable violation of a
person's rights.  To slaveholders or modern racists, the second statement
was/is reasonable.  A guess: one could hear the second statement with some
frequency in the early 1860's during heated debates on the precursor to
the Internet.  To modern pro-choicers, the first statement is reasonable.
One could argue that the most significant difference between the 2 is
time.


> It might seem that way to you, but here's a construction formed using
> the same process used to form the one above, but it's more
> demonstrably ludicrous:
>
> Begin with the following analogy between eating pork and rape:
>
>     Pork                Rape
>     ----                ----
>     Eating pork outlawed by some    Rape outlawed by some religions
>     religions
>
>     Eating animals considered to    Rape considered to be cruel by
>     be cruel by some people        some people
>
>     Animals considered to be    Rape victims considered to be
>     property by some people         property by some people who
>                     rape
>
> The analogy is clearly flawed, and flawed in the same way your
> abortion/slavery analogy is flawed, but more obviously flawed.
> Nevertheless, here is the (flawed) conclusion we can draw from this
> (flawed) analogy:
>
>     If the argument
>
>         ``If you don't like pork, don't eat it.''
>
>     is a valid argument for keeping pork legal, then
>
>         ``If you don't like rape, don't rape anyone.''
>
>     is a valid argument for legalizing rape.
>
> Allow me to show you why my construction is similar to yours.  Most of
> us agree that rape is illegal because people have a right to be free
> from sexual assault, and that those found guilty of violating that
> right should be punished.  With few exceptions (members of PETA
> notable among them), most people do not consider swine to be entities
> with a right to be free from being slaughtered and eaten.
>
> The construction is similar to yours in that, like rape, slavery is
> seen by most (though not all) people as a violation of a person's
> right not to be enslaved (or raped as the case may be) -- and no, I
> don't have a lot of sympathy for the minority that is squelched under
> the jackboots of the tyrannical majority on this issue.  Likewise,
> like swine, human fetuses are seen by most (though not all) people as
> entities that do not have a right to be free from being slaughtered.
> You might argue that this is an unsupportable assertion, and I would
> agree -- but, the available evidence suggests that very few people
> would support public policy based around the notion that fetuses are
> persons with the right to be free from being aborted.  That evidence
> is polling data which would seem to indicate that the number of people
> who would support a complete ban on abortion without exception is
> remarkably low, and the absence of highly visible organizations
> demanding that women who miscarry be considered murder suspects.
>
> Put simply, the difference between slavery and abortion is that slaves
> are people and fetuses are not.

Put correctly, the difference between slavery and abortion, in 1992
America, is that fetuses are not considered to be people by a majority
of the population, as near as we can tell from "polling data".  This
difference has not always existed; indeed, there must have been large
segments of the American population which, a century or so ago, would
have said:

    ...the difference between slavery and abortion is that (white)
    fetuses are people and slaves are not.

> The relevance of the difference is
> that people have a right to personal autonomy that deserves
> protection, thus slavery is a punishable violation of a person's
> rights -- whereas abortion is only a violation of a person's rights if
> it is performed against a woman's will.  The fetus does not have a
> right to be free from abortion.

It seems to me that after all this you have merely shown how sound the
original analogy really is.  The slaveholder, by denying the personhood
of slaves, or by denying the existence of inherent rights retained by
persons, could (and probably did) say:

         "If you don't like slavery, don't keep a slave."

The pro-choicer, by denying the personhood of a fetus, can (and does)
say:

         "If you don't like abortion, don't have one."

For now, a majority of people seem to have rejected the slaveholder's
mentality.  If they change their minds, it won't change the immorality
of slavery.  But we're sure to start hearing:

         "If you don't like slavery, don't keep a slave."

Finally, copied from above:

> #      If the argument
> #
> #          "If you don't like abortion, don't have one."
> #
> #      is a valid one for keeping abortion legal, then
> #
> #          "If you don't like slavery, don't keep a slave."
> #
> #      is a valid argument for legalized slavery.

IMO, the true utility of the analogy is to illustrate the absurdity
of making either statement to a person who is raising an objection to
abortion (or slavery).  Regardless of the current majority opinion on
slavery, some of us think it's wrong, and the statement

         "If you don't like slavery, don't keep a slave."

is preposterous.

Likewise, regardless of the current majority opinion on abortion, some
think it's wrong, and the statement

         "If you don't like abortion, don't have one."

is equivalently absurd.
--

Steve Matheson   Program in Neuroscience   University of Arizona
[e-mail]