A hypothetical situation for pro-life people

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Oleg Volk

If you were under attack by a pregnant woman and had to choose between dying or using deadly force in self-defense, which would you choose? If you would choose self-defense, how do you reconcile harming the fetus to save your life with putting the fetus first when the life of the mother is on the line for medical or other reasons?

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45 Responses to A hypothetical situation for pro-life people

  1. Montag says:
    October 20, 2014 at 12:48 am

    Easy – your right to live trumps the right of another’s when that person is trying to kill you.

    Let’s turn your example on its head a bit. Let’s say you’re facing a male ex-con who has a hostage and is shooting at you. In returning fire, you kill the innocent hostage. Do you normally go around killing innocent people? Obviously not.

    Much like with abortion – normally, they just go around killing innocent people. An actual ‘it’s the baby living or the mom living’ scenario is so rare that you might as well bank on getting into space as a NASA astronaut.

    A man has something you want. You shoot him in the face and take it. Abortion is at that level. Calculated slaughter.

    I don’t believe in the death penalty either. Or in stepping on ants.

    • Y. says:
      October 20, 2014 at 4:41 am

      You kinda missed the point there.

      If you shoot the pregnant women attacker, you’re probably going to kill the fetus she’s carrying too. It’s a huge stretch to claim the fetus was attacking you, yet you are going to kill it even though it has done nothing to you..

      • HSR47 says:
        October 20, 2014 at 7:22 am

        No, it’s you who missed his point.

        I’ll quote it for you:

        “Let’s turn your example on its head a bit. Let’s say you’re facing a male ex-con who has a hostage and is shooting at you. In returning fire, you kill the innocent hostage.”

        Put that way, it’s fairly clear that the unborn child is effectively being held hostage by a criminal actor who is, hypothetically, putting my life in immediate jeopardy. As that hostage would not be in that position without the criminal actor breaking a long list of statutes, the fate of the hostage is on the head of the criminal actor(s), and not mine.

        In effect, his argument is that the felony murder rule applies in this hypothetical case.

        For those unfamiliar with this doctrine, which is currently codified in at least 46 states, it stipulates that death as the result of felonious activity is legally the fault of those criminal actors responsible for initiating force.

        • Oleg Volk says:
          October 20, 2014 at 7:24 am

          You are absolutely correct legally. My question was more about the absolute or relative degree of the prohibition on harming fetuses.

          • Weer'd Beard says:
            October 20, 2014 at 8:30 am

            I’m on this one. Killing the fetus SUCKS and is horrible, but the choice is not mine. I will not choose to die, nor will I hope for mercy from somebody who is threatening my life.

            They made the choice to have their child killed, and as pro-life as I am, I think the chance that the fetus may die, vs. the chance that my daughter won’t have a father growing up.

            • Jennifer says:
              October 20, 2014 at 10:21 am

              I am with Weer’d on this one. In this scenario, it is the mother that carries the guilt for putting her unborn child in harms way. She is just as wrong as the mother that kills her unborn child in a clinic. I choose to act in my own defense.

        • Y. says:
          October 20, 2014 at 9:51 am

          I’d say the example provided is not that good.

          Criminals are generally even worse shots than the police, generally use pistols and thus some people would argue one should retreat in such a situation.

          Besides, would not shooting the hostage make one liable to be sued by the hostage’s family?

          • JSW says:
            October 26, 2014 at 6:11 am

            So we should ask about a person’s shooting experience before returning fire? Hmmm… interesting concept. Right along with wounding them in the leg or shoulder the way it’s done one Tv.

  2. ElfDragon says:
    October 20, 2014 at 1:16 am

    Let’s see if I can explain this without riling up the Internet nitpickers.

    First, I’m neither pro-life nor pro-abortion. While I favor life it’s none of my business what legal medical choice some woman makes about her pregnancy.

    As to the question – I’ll presume that the woman has made very clear her intent to commit murder and/or great bodily harm. Being pro My life I’d use force to protect myself and others from attack. If her condition is obvious it may alter my aim and tactics to avoid hitting the fetus if I can.

    The question presumes that someone pro-life – to the extent of denying an abortion when the mother’s life is threatened – may get stuck in a moral quandary. I disagree. The fetus is legally, morally and ethically “innocent” of any malice or wrongdoing. Thus the fetus is, in essence, a hostage of it’s mother. If the mother’s actions put herself and her fetus in mortal danger — by walking on busy train tracks or by trying to murder someone — that is her decision and hers alone.

    My immediate problem is protecting my own life and/or the lives of others. If I’m faced with a homicidal threat a lot of things become less important than staying alive. I don’t care why she’s trying to murder me. I don’t care if it’s a hormone imbalance caused by her pregnancy, that she’s off her meds, is having a bad acid trip, or she’s fed up with the attitude of men in general. Nothing I can do to correct any of that.

    Nor do I care about her future plans to be a doctor, her school grades, struggles with addiction, that she’s turned her life around, her recent marriage or divorce or even that she’s nice to puppies and kittens. The only things I care about – at that moment – are stopping the threat she poses and avoiding collateral damage to innocents.

    That’s my opinion and worth every penny you paid for it.

  3. Matthew Groom says:
    October 20, 2014 at 2:19 am

    Before we went to Iraq, the guys in my section and I were talking about what to do if some goat-rapist is firing an AK at you from behind women who are acting either voluntarily or involuntarily as human shields. The solution is simple: shoot the women. If he gets away, he won’t try that trick again, and neither will his dickhead buddies. If you can kill the aggressor without hitting an innocent, then do, but if not, then they should learn how to duck, or run away, because their life is of a lesser value to me than the lives of my friends, and the completion of our mission, which will save the lives of many more people in the long run.

    My family and friends depend on me. If I die, they are left without support. If a criminal dies, everyone benefits. If the child of a criminal dies, it is tragic, but at least they are spared the life of suffering that such a wicked person would have subjected them to.

    The joke we came up with for those hostage targets you see on shooting ranges is “Terrorist Sympathizer Targets” as a result of this.
    “You hit the hostage!”
    “That’s not a hostage! That’s a terrorist sympathizer! Two extra points!”

    In a very real sense, however, a pregnant woman who is acting as an aggressor is also a hostage taker. She has put her child’s life in danger, the same way she would if she had robbed a bank with a child in the back seat of the getaway car. If the child is injured, she would be charged with manslaughter or murder, and the same should occur if your bullet, fired defensively, results in the death of her unborn child.

    I am pro-life for two reasons: logic and demographics. I am not pro-life as a matter of morality, because I am an Atheist, and my moral compass is my own. There is no denying that abortion is conducted for one reason: to kill a child while it is still legal to do so. That’s logic. All else is emotional hyperbole. A country cannot survive without a unifying, multi-generational native culture in any economic, cultural, or martial sense. That requires a steady birthrate of at least 2.1 children for every adult woman. That’s demographics. It is not wrong to kill people who are trying to murder you or other innocent persons. That’s logic. People who are inclined to commit violent crimes while pregnant are… well, that’s sociology, but you get the idea.

    • Y. says:
      October 20, 2014 at 5:05 am

      Logic and demographics dictates not being pro-life but being an eugenicist.

      Intelligence is quite heritable (~60). A society in which every male was heavily incentivised to only have one biological child unless they were really sharp, in which case they’d be encouraged to donate to sperm banks which would provide the seed for every child after the first one.. such a society would very likely experience a rapid rise in average cognitive ability. And be at a great advantage*.

      Just having lots of people is not that much of an advantage.

      There’s been notably few experiments towards this, but here you can read about one. Seemed to have worked pretty well..

      http://www.slate.com/articles/life/seed/2001/02/the_genius_babies_and_how_they_grew.html

      *dating would be problematic though, if almost everyone had say two-dozen or more half siblings throughout the country.

      • Matthew Groom says:
        October 20, 2014 at 12:35 pm

        Logic dictates that one actually examine facts before they develop an opinion, and that means that we examine world population and expected growth, and we look at production of food and other resources, and we see that the Malthusians have ALWAYS been WRONG in every era, and they’re wrong about now, and they’re wrong about the future.

        Eugenics is the naive assumption that you can assign value to human characteristics which are inheritable, which is incredibly stupid. I have discovered in my life that you can learn something from every person you meet, no matter how unintelligent they may seem at first glance. If you are incapable of learning from a person with a low IQ, then you are the one who has the mental defect. Everybody is good at something, and every one has a skill. We will never succeed as a species if we are forced to reduce Rocket Scientists to the level of fry-cooks and janitors because those are the only jobs left and everyone is a genius. Many hands make light work.

        Eugenics is the imbecilic notion that humans can improve about natural order through central-planning, and as every other single instance of central-planning by governments has shown, this is guaranteed to result in catastrophe, failure, and death. Eugenics is NOT logical; it’s the emotion-based concept that “I’m great and there should be more people exactly like me. Anyone not like me should be killed, or never allowed to be born.” A species where everyone shares the same “superior” genes is a species that is rife with unavoidable genetic abnormalities, inheritable diseases, and vulnerability to previously unexperienced viruses. Modern humans occurred due to random patterns, and all future evolutionary paths will be determined by mixing of the most dissimilar genes, not selecting of the best ones by a committee. Name one good thing that’s been designed by a committee.

        • Y. says:
          October 21, 2014 at 6:22 am

          and we see that the Malthusians have ALWAYS been WRONG in every era, and they’re wrong about now, and they’re wrong about the future.

          So China, Japan, India, etc.. were not bumping up against Malthusian limits?

          You’re saying that Farewell to Alms is a piece of BS, because there were no constraints on population size of pre-industrial revolution Britain and these constraints have not affected relative survival rates? Could you elaborate on that?

          And the fact that human populations exploded after advances in agriculture and especially artificial fertilizers.. that in no way vindicates Malthusians? It’s merely a coincidence!

          Eugenics is the naive assumption that you can assign value to human characteristics which are inheritable, which is incredibly stupid.

          Why is it stupid?

          If you are incapable of learning from a person with a low IQ, then you are the one who has the mental defect.

          Never said that. However, smarter people learn way faster and can master more difficult topics so there is much more to learn from them.

          Furthermore, I’ve known a lot of average intelligence people with whom I was basically on good terms, in a youth organisation, however, the difference between them and say, people with whom I went to prep school* was quite marked.

          We will never succeed as a species if we are forced to reduce Rocket Scientists to the level of fry-cooks and janitors because those are the only jobs left and everyone is a genius.

          It doesn’t occur to you that a species in which people who could be rocket-scientists are as rare as people suitable to be fry-cooks would very likely have I dunno..robots, zombies, whatever to do menial work. And said rocket-scientists would be probably be doing quite interesting work, perhaps not as interesting as the elites would be doing.

          Tell me- how is America (or any other developed country) going to employ all those functionally illiterate people now that there’s not much of a market for such labour? I understand that right now you’re paying them off so they don’t act up, but what happens if the EBT system crashes for a month? Or the feds go bankrupt?

          A species where everyone shares the same “superior” genes is a species that is rife with unavoidable genetic abnormalities, inheritable diseases, and vulnerability to previously unexperienced viruses.

          I didn’t say I was in favor of a clone society.
          Intelligence is highly polygenic, and it’s estimated that tens of thousands of genes are involved in it.

          Eugenic breeding practices would not result in an inbred society. The number of gifted people is high enough to avoid anything like that.

          Eugenics is the imbecilic notion that humans can improve about natural order through central-planning, and as every other single instance of central-planning by governments has shown, this is guaranteed to result in catastrophe, failure, and death.

          I never said it was supposed to be state-run. However, you Americans called a guy who simply started a fertility clinic that preferentially chose high intelligence donors a nazi.

          Modern humans occurred due to random patterns, and all future evolutionary paths will be determined by mixing of the most dissimilar genes, not selecting of the best ones by a committee. Name one good thing that’s been designed by a committee.

          No, I guess you failed biology. Modern humans exist because SOME of the random mutations that occurred turned out to be beneficial. You do know that 60% of prehistoric males died childless?

          No one’s saying anything about committees – except you.

          We mostly don’t know which genes are good and bad. Perhaps we will know – BGI is working on that. However, insisting that good breeding is the same as ‘design by committee’.. that’s not even wrong. It’s not even on the same planet.

          And thinking that mixing ‘the most dissimilar genes’ is in any way advantageous shows that Political Correctness can be truly insidious.

          There is no advantage in excess diversity.

          _____________________

          They’re called ‘gymnasiums’ in Europe and typically don’t charge tuition but have selective admissions based on usually non-standardized tests.

      • SinEater says:
        October 22, 2014 at 2:43 pm

        If you wanted to conduct a breeding program and were absolutely only trying to breed for certain characteristics you will still be stymied by the raw size of the human genome. Breeding for specific traits at the sacrifice of others also tends to breed in defects. This is bad for the overall genetic health of a population. There is some evidence that a population with a higher intelligence might also have a higher rate of autism and schizophrenia.
        That being said, pro-choice politics are already a eugenics program. The people who are having abortions are the people that would normally be targeted by a broad sweeping eugenics program. Poor, underprivileged, economically challenged single women who are quite often members of minorities are the biggest targets of these political movements.
        And I do agree with Matthew Groom but state my belief differently. The value of a human life is not based on bench press weights or absolute IQ. It is based upon their value to the people around them and the improvement they make in the world they inhabit. There are a number of people who will never ever make it into MENSA and are not physically imposing specimens but who have contributed greatly to the world, simply by doing the things that they do. Rosa Parks was never a member of Mensa and was not a supermodel. The Founding Fathers were not all intellectual giants, based upon their financial and personal histories, yet look at the changes they wrought in the world…..We do not have at this time a great enough understanding of the human genome and the way that various concepts like nature versus nurture may affect the resulting person that develops over the years after a birth. And even if we do develop a complete and accurate chart of genetic development, there are plenty of examples of highly intelligent and/or highly charismatic and/or otherwise the type of people who otherwise scored highly in the genetic lottery who turned out to be serial killers or psychopaths or simply lazy and incompetent.

        • Y. says:
          October 23, 2014 at 6:46 am

          The value of a human life is not based on bench press weights or absolute IQ.

          Didn’t say that.

          However, it’s pretty safe to assume smarter people do complex things more easily.

          There is some evidence that a population with a higher intelligence might also have a higher rate of autism and schizophrenia.

          I’d like to see that. From what I’ve read, schizophrenia is more rare among people with high intelligence. OCD is more common though.

          As to autism.. that’s bunk. Most autistic people are mentally subnormal.

          Poor, underprivileged, economically challenged single women who are quite often members of minorities are the biggest targets of these political movements.

          So? Is it a bad thing that people who just can’t hack it are less likely to leave descendants?

          Do you think the world would be better if there was no natural selection?

          There are a number of people who will never ever make it into MENSA and are not physically imposing specimens but who have contributed greatly to the world, simply by doing the things that they do. Rosa Parks was never a member of Mensa and was not a supermodel.

          So? It’s not like she’d have accomplished anything had there not been other people involved.

          I’m also curious how NAACP would respond to a question asking them how the position of the African-Americans has improved since the 1960’s. Sure, they’re now beneficients of affirmative action programs, but the present day AA culture seems far more rife with social pathologies.

          And even if we do develop a complete and accurate chart of genetic development, there are plenty of examples of highly intelligent and/or highly charismatic and/or otherwise the type of people who otherwise scored highly in the genetic lottery who turned out to be serial killers or psychopaths or simply lazy and incompetent.

          One thing: highly intelligent people are less likely to be criminal or violent. And as to laziness, it’s often a virtue, because people who don’t look for shortcuts are not going to find ways of doing stuff more efficiently..

    • Sigivald says:
      October 21, 2014 at 3:51 pm

      If he gets away, he won’t try that trick again, and neither will his dickhead buddies.

      True.

      People respond to incentives, as Glenn Reynolds likes to point out (“What you reward, you get more of.”).

      Shooting, if not deliberately to kill a hostage, but regardless of their presence, is on par with “never pay a ransom” as a way to discourage hostage taking and kidnapping, respectively.

      Don’t let the tactic benefit the other guy, and he won’t do it. Let it benefit him and he will do it more.

  4. nicki says:
    October 20, 2014 at 4:23 am

    If I am being attacked, I will defend myself. I will not sacrifice my life to someone trying to take my life because they may be pregnant.

    If there unborn child dies as a result of my defensive actions, it is the Mothers fault, not mine for putting her child in harms way.

    Of course in a life and death situation my instinct would probably read her as fat versus pregnant, lets face it, in these circumstances things may happen in under 3 seconds.

  5. Peter says:
    October 20, 2014 at 4:38 am

    During the civil unrest in South Africa from 1976-1994 we had multiple incidents of female terrorists charging at police or army troops carrying Molotov cocktails ready to throw, with a baby strapped across their chest. It was a deliberate terrorist tactic, designed to make the targets more reluctant to shoot for fear of harming the baby, thereby allowing the woman to get close enough to launch her flaming bombs and destroy the vehicle in which the targets were riding.

    The result was usually a dead woman and baby, and live police or soldiers.

    I believe that you have not only a moral right, but a moral duty, to defend and safeguard the life you’ve been given. There are ‘higher purposes’ that might trump that right and duty (for example, a mother or father trying to save the life of their child[ren], and dying in the attempt). However, in the situation you postulate, there is no such ‘higher purpose’ involved. I might be very reluctant to take the shot, but if my life’s on the line, I’d take it.

  6. Joe says:
    October 20, 2014 at 6:30 am

    Of course you save your life. Besides, you’re not trying to kill any person you use deadly force against. Though it is a reasonable expectation. You are merely trying to get them to stop the action which lead you to shoot. The moral onus is on the mother who decided to put her child’s life at risk. This is also one of the least likely of scenarios to happen.

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  8. Oleg Volk says:
    October 20, 2014 at 7:13 am

    Clarification: I posed “a hypothetical scenario to test pro-life beliefs for logical consistency” — and it’s not so far-fetched. Pregnant women, especially in early stages when hormones are out of whack but the mobility isn’t impaired, have been known to be violent. So a methhead on the second trimester could cut or shoot you just as easily as anyone else. The question is directed more towards the “no exception for health of the mother” folks who crafted the proposed amendment to the Tennessee constitution currently on the ballot.

    • Chris says:
      October 20, 2014 at 12:38 pm

      Let me repeat the ‘hook’ of your post: “If you would choose self-defense, how do you reconcile harming the fetus to save your life with putting the fetus first when the life of the mother is on the line for medical or other reasons?”

      This last question is what no one seems to be answering, instead they’re justifying the first scenario.

      I haven’t read anyone catch that, but that presupposes that those of us who are pro-life would automatically put the fetus’ life ahead of the mother with no exception.

      Personally, I would put my wife’s life ahead of the fetus’ life if medical situations dictate, but I can say that never having experienced that situation. I am not a resident of Tennessee, either, but that seems to be the gist of your arguement.

      • Chris says:
        October 20, 2014 at 12:40 pm

        Patrick Cassidy caught it, though.

      • ctd says:
        October 20, 2014 at 2:50 pm

        Short answer: “triage”. Those morally responsible for deciding who gets what treatment to the probable detriment of another are not held culpable for the unavoidable loss of life. This is morally no different than self-defense: if someone’s gonna die, someone having moral authority in the situation chooses who.

        Insofar as the _real_ question regards the Tenn. proposition, problem is the wording of “health” instead of “life”, whereby creativity may concoct many strained justifications for terminal triage where it isn’t warranted. Yes, pregnancy to term will affect the “health” of the mother (hormonal changes, skeletal & weight changes, nontrivial risk of harm during delivery, etc.) – but that doesn’t justify killing the child she (in most cases) _chose_ to create.

  9. Fakia says:
    October 20, 2014 at 7:29 am

    I’m pro choice and I might not be able to use deadly force against a pregnant woman. If I did I’d be torn up about it for the rest of my life, because I’m pro choice politically, but my personal values are very much anti-abortion.

    I think a lot of people lose sight of the distinction between the choices they would make in their own lives, and their willingness to use force to compel the same choices by others.

    • Oleg Volk says:
      October 20, 2014 at 7:32 am

      I think the distinction is very important.

    • LarryArnold says:
      October 20, 2014 at 1:24 pm

      I think a lot of people lose sight of the distinction between the choices they would make in their own lives, and their willingness to use force to compel the same choices by others.

      I think way too many people lose sight of the distinction between the choices they would make in their own lives, and their willingness to use force to compel the same choices by others. Unfortunately.

  10. Patrick Vadnais says:
    October 20, 2014 at 8:53 am

    The distinction of “malice aforethought” would be the primary difference.

  11. ctd says:
    October 20, 2014 at 9:21 am

    I’m with the “hostage scenario” group. She chose to put two lives in danger, not you, and one of those lives is absolutely her responsibility to protect, not yours. Your primary obligation is to save you and yours. Collateral casualties sometimes happen and are forgivable when there is no better option. If you _can_ rescue the child somehow without further risk to others, you are obligated to do so (just like you don’t shoot hostages unless not doing so causes more harm, as other respondents have detailed).

    The unrelated but conflated “life of the mother” argument is an absolutely settled moral & legal issue. It’s triage. Just like self-defense, someone’s gonna die, and you’re in a valid position (if you’re not, GTFO) to make the choice of who survives and who doesn’t.

    The “pro-choice” side consistently & tenaciously avoids the elephant in the room: nearly all abortions are for purposes of retroactive birth control. There was a choice, and it was made: create a new human being. Choices have consequences. Consistent with the pro-life pro-self-defense axiom: don’t terminate a life unless another’s life is at risk and you have a moral right to make that choice.

    Oh, and remember it’s shoot to STOP, not kill. You’d rather not terminate your hypothetical pregnant assailant either, best if all three can emerge the incident alive.

    All human life is precious and steps must be taken to protect all. Life begins at conception, there is no other “bright line” on the issue. It is morally correct to realize that sometimes, for whatever reason, life will likely be lost; those responsible for those lives have the moral right & obligation to adjust whose will.

    • Y. says:
      October 21, 2014 at 11:18 am

      The “pro-choice” side consistently & tenaciously avoids the elephant in the room: nearly all abortions are for purposes of retroactive birth control. There was a choice, and it was made: create a new human being.

      What if birth control was used but was faulty, for example?
      What about people who can’t use birth control correctly?

      All human life is precious and steps must be taken to protect all.

      So.. why are pro-life organisations not funding medical initiatives aimed at doing something about the exceedingly high number of miscarriages that occur?

      Seems to me that from the pro-life point of view, there’s no difference between doing something about that and doing something about child mortality.

  12. Patrick Cassidy says:
    October 20, 2014 at 9:28 am

    Oleg, You are assuming all pro-lifers would put the unborn child first in a situation where the mother’s life is legitimately on the line. Many of us would look at this as a case of justifiable, though tragically sad, homicide. It is important to point out that life threatening pregnancies are incredibly rare occurrences. This really doesn’t speak to the issue of infanticide on demand.

  13. Oleg Volk says:
    October 20, 2014 at 9:33 am

    For the record, I must state that I am 100% pro-life. If I ever get pregnant, I would definitely go through with the entire gestation process and deliver.

  14. Mark says:
    October 20, 2014 at 9:45 am

    I consider myself pro-life. I’m going to change the scenario. If I had a pregnant wife who found herself in an emergency operating room. My “choice” is that priority for all life saving decisions by the medical staff go to my wife. I would be highly ticked off if the hospital told me that my decision was illegal or was taken away from me because of some law.

  15. Weetabix says:
    October 20, 2014 at 10:52 am

    I think the analogy is a bit flawed. I’d shoot the woman.

    But the baby involved in the abortion is not a rational, malicious actor with a choice of whether or not to endanger the mother.

    A better analogy might be: a child is walking unwittingly toward a tripwire that will kill someone he can’t see. Do you kill the child to stop him from tripping the wire? No.

    • Lyle says:
      October 20, 2014 at 4:31 pm

      Do you kill the child if the child hitting the tripwire would kill you?

      • Sigivald says:
        October 21, 2014 at 4:05 pm

        Or if it’d kill a dozen people?

        A thousand?

        Start WW3?

        Destroy all life on Earth?

        (Yes, these are ridiculous hypotheticals.

        But at some point the utilitarian “how many corpses are worth your desire to not shoot this toddler?” question becomes relevant…)

  16. Lyle says:
    October 20, 2014 at 4:40 pm

    Your right (and responsibility) is self defense. The mother’s responsibility is her child. Your responsibility is to defend innocent life. Clearly you cannot uphold all of those ideals at once. It is a personal decision than cannot be made until it happens.

    We can and should uphold certain ideals, even when it becomes impossible. In a split second decision, in your scenario, something is going to go wrong. Or maybe not. You may shoot the mother and both mother and child survive. You may shoot the mother and the mother dies and the child survives. You many shoot the mother and both mother and child die. You may shoot the mother, too late, and you and they all die. Or you may not shoot the mother and you die, while she and her child survive.

    Good? Bad? Who knows? You’ve given us a paradox. Paradoxes make poor examples.

    Again; we can and should have ideals, even though we know that they’ll sometimes (very rarely) be difficult or impossible to apply. The job of evil is to make it near impossible for you to apply your principles consistently. That is the fault of evil, not the fault of the principles.

  17. Michael says:
    October 20, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    Easy, a person has the right to self defense, and if there is the death of another innocent as a result, then morally it is on the head of the original aggressor.

    Morally, it isn’t much different than a terrorist who tries to hide behind civilian human shields. We are obligated to try and strike the bad guy in a way that offers the least risk to the civilians, but ultimately their deaths are on the heads of the terrorist.

  18. Tim Allen says:
    October 20, 2014 at 8:37 pm

    I question the premise of the question. To be attacked with deadly force by a pregnant woman would be an exceedingly rare occurrence and as they say “hard cases make bad law”. Anyone can dream up moral dilemmas to prove or disprove some point or another but such exercises are more useful as propaganda exercises than rational arguments.

  19. Risky Whiskey says:
    October 21, 2014 at 3:22 am

    if you were under attack by a pregnant wolf and were given no choice but to kill the mother (despite the life of the unborn cub) IN ORDER TO SURVIVE THE ATTACK could you justify it as well?

    IMHO it’s the same situation. If you are going to DIE if you do not choose to KILL, then you are justified in doing what you must do in order to survive….hopefully the courts will agree with you.

    As far as the unborn child….that’s on the mother’s head for endangering it’s life by attacking you and leaving you no choice.

  20. Mr Evilwrench says:
    October 21, 2014 at 9:40 am

    Whether or not it’s a pregnant woman, shooting someone to death should tear you up for the rest of your life anyway, if you have any conscience. Still, you shoot to stop the threat. If that causes its death, them’s the breaks. If it takes a fetus with it, same thing. She started it, you ended it.

    There is an important distinction I haven’t seen so far. The concept of “pro life” is inextricably wound up with abortion. This is the voluntary “causing of death” of a human fetus, whether you, as I do, consider it murder, or simply a surgical procedure. Abortion is done in a peaceful, clinical manner, no overt violence involved, while the pregnant woman attacking me is being overtly violent. That changes the rules.

  21. Suspect1 says:
    October 23, 2014 at 6:48 am

    If the life of a child was to be terminated due to the reader not comprehending the questions asked, there would be many dead children following this post.

    The choice a woman or a couple would make in ending a child’s life before birth should be more difficult than a shoot/no shoot scenario. The shoot / no shoot can be trained for, becoming almost instinctive, and is about disposal of a threat, but no matter the circumstances, taking a life is involved, if that life is the vessel for another life, the onus is on the vessel. On the abortion issue, and not being involved in the decision personally, I would have to say that a pregnancy that will kill, or cause serious harm to the mother, should be considered a threat and that having an abortion to remove the threat is akin to pulling and shooting a gun to protect life. The bigger issue that I see here is that people are not willing to call “things” by their correct names, as it hurts their sensibilities or it casts a better/worse light on the action that they have taken. A shooting whether self-defense or robbery is homicide, the termination of a viable pregnancy is homicide, putting a criminal to death is homicide, all of these actions, snuff the life force of another of God’s creations (or the life of one of Nature’s chaotic happenstances, or life given by a mother and father……I think I covered the bases) and these actions should be called what they are, and the people who are making the decisions should not delude themselves.
    What I would like to see, and never will, is consistency in thought. ***** Abortion is wrong and should be illegal. The death penalty should be struck from the options of possible sentences.**** These two statements are consistent. Now my personal opinion is different. Life should be protected, and revered, we should always work toward better forms of defense for life, but there are times when it needs to be taken. Abortion can split your soul, make you wake everyday with regret, picture the child you should have, and can destroy you emotionally, yes, even for the father of the child that was victim of homicidal termination of pregnancy. There are many other options that allow prospective parents to release the responsibility of having a dependent, and too much time is spent arguing “Is it a life?”, “A woman’s right to her own body” or “From the point of conception on it is one of God’s creations” etc…etc… A consistent and honest love of all life should, and can get to a place where no abortions are done, unless the life of the mother is at stake, without forcing women to seek to commit homicide in some back alley with a 3rd year medical student/butcher (effectively putting the mother at risk of homicide or even putting the abortionist at risk of homicide if he were to botch it, kill the mother, and found guilty, ending up on the electric chair…….where a homicide is committed). The same can be said of self defense, that instead of arguing over the inanimate object used to commit homicidal self defense, that all sides should work toward eliminating the causes of aggression, starvation, predation and law breakadation (my best Sharpton impression) that would limit victims being put in a scenario to commit homicidal self defense, in which they would have to deal with the psychological issues that come along with the taking of a life. It (taking a life) is the most powerful action we as human beings can commit, it should be given the due deference it deserves, humanity should be working toward the goal of ensuring all human life is ended by old age, God’s hand, or reaching the limit of our throw of nature’s dice if you prefer to nix God. Instead parrots take a stance, pick a side, and squawk, squawk, squawk away like mindless magpies trained to repeat the words of someone else’s thought. Enough

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