Very well done. I think that pro-life wins out in the case of utilitarianism generally. I started working on a long argument for that, but I haven't recently. I think it's an interesting question.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think [the two paragraphs that begin "Sometimes people think that bodily autonomy justifies getting an abortion"] is the only section that directly addresses this line of argument. If so, I see 4 arguments, which I'll address in turn:
(1) Do we commandeer men's kidneys for their children without their consent? If (1) were true, shouldn't we expect that? Why only commandeer their mothers' wombs, unless we implicitly devalue her autonomy?
(2) This is just a restatement of (1), and again, we don't behave as though this is a general moral principle. Are parents even required to provide something as benign as blood donation to save their children?
(4) Granted. Remove the fetus carefully under the supervision of a guardian [ad] litem and hope for the best."
On further reflection, I notice that I may be responding to a misconstrual of your points. There are two distinct pro-life/pro-choice debates: (1) the question of whether it is impermissible for an individual to intentionally bring about an abortion (personal morality), and (2) the question of whether the state should or may ban abortion (political morality). My arguments as written go to political morality (I was responding to @ghostcoase's tweet here: https://twitter.com/GhostCoase/status/1589848885480288256); I take your arguments to be about personal morality, although at other parts of your post (e.g. the rapid fire responses to "terrible arguments") the distinction is less clear.
Rephrased in personal moral terms, my arguments don't work as well; it is plausible to me that e.g. a father has a moral obligation to give a kidney to save his child. The best restatement in terms of personal morality is that it is possible for an abortion to be moral or immoral, but the woman is best placed to know the relevant facts and so it is presumptively moral. But that's question begging for the purposes of the impairment argument, which holds that abortion is never moral.
To your impairment argument, I'd reject (1) and (2).
(1) Is true, but it is a strawman. Abortion can be permissible in some circumstances or by some methods without it being permissible in all circumstances or by all methods, so the pro-choice argument does not need to hold that abortion is permissible simpliciter.
(2) Is false. It does not follow from the permissibility of X by means [A,B,C] that [A,B,C] is permissible absent the intent to do X, much less that A is permissible absent B and C. For example: it is permissible to cut someone open for surgery, but it is not generally permissible to cut someone open; it is permissible to cut someone open [carefully, with their consent, with the intent to sew them up again], but it is not permissible to cut someone open carefully, absent consent and an intent to sew them up again.
[In the spirit of steelmanning, I’ll take a stab (pardon the pun) at your argument. P2 seems a bit confused, it should say it’s permissible to *conduct abortions* by removing 1 limb. Since removing limbs is only permitted for abortions, removing 1 limb is never permitted.
In other words, removing limbs without the intent of abortion is not permitted, so removing 1 limb, since that doesn’t cause abortion, is not permitted. But if it did cause abortion, then it would be permitted.]
Here I am arguing with that the claim “ it’s permissible to painlessly chop off one of a fetus’s arms” is a non sequitur because it is supposed to follow from “it would be permissible to conduct an abortion by painlessly chopping off all of a fetus’s arms and legs” where the operative phrase “to conduct an abortion” is not present in the statement I quoted in premise 2.
So my point is that it is permissible to maim a fetus for the purpose of conducting an abortion, whether it be 1 limb or all limbs that are removed. But since removing only 1 limb is not sufficient for conducting an abortion, it is never permissible.
Therefore it does not follow from the fact that it’s impermissible to remove a single limb from a fetus that abortion is impermissible.
To be clear, I’m pro-life and am defending a view that I don’t hold.
Most people intuitively distinguish between preventing a being from beginning to exist and causing a being to stop existing. This distinction implies the permissibility of abortion. Most people are hence committed to finding it slightly wrong to kill a fetus that has experienced a few milliseconds of consciousness, because those milliseconds produce a weak interest in continuing to exist. This is correct!
Very well done. I think that pro-life wins out in the case of utilitarianism generally. I started working on a long argument for that, but I haven't recently. I think it's an interesting question.
(Copied from here by request: https://twitter.com/mcorliss/status/1590211283429003264)
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think [the two paragraphs that begin "Sometimes people think that bodily autonomy justifies getting an abortion"] is the only section that directly addresses this line of argument. If so, I see 4 arguments, which I'll address in turn:
(1) Do we commandeer men's kidneys for their children without their consent? If (1) were true, shouldn't we expect that? Why only commandeer their mothers' wombs, unless we implicitly devalue her autonomy?
(2) This is just a restatement of (1), and again, we don't behave as though this is a general moral principle. Are parents even required to provide something as benign as blood donation to save their children?
(3) Millions of people per year do not donate kidneys. But reasonable estimates put QALYs at 140:1 in favor of the state commandeering kidneys without consent. (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yTu9pa9Po4hAuhETJ/kidney-donation-is-a-reasonable-choice-for-effective) etc. etc.
(4) Granted. Remove the fetus carefully under the supervision of a guardian [ad] litem and hope for the best."
On further reflection, I notice that I may be responding to a misconstrual of your points. There are two distinct pro-life/pro-choice debates: (1) the question of whether it is impermissible for an individual to intentionally bring about an abortion (personal morality), and (2) the question of whether the state should or may ban abortion (political morality). My arguments as written go to political morality (I was responding to @ghostcoase's tweet here: https://twitter.com/GhostCoase/status/1589848885480288256); I take your arguments to be about personal morality, although at other parts of your post (e.g. the rapid fire responses to "terrible arguments") the distinction is less clear.
Rephrased in personal moral terms, my arguments don't work as well; it is plausible to me that e.g. a father has a moral obligation to give a kidney to save his child. The best restatement in terms of personal morality is that it is possible for an abortion to be moral or immoral, but the woman is best placed to know the relevant facts and so it is presumptively moral. But that's question begging for the purposes of the impairment argument, which holds that abortion is never moral.
To your impairment argument, I'd reject (1) and (2).
(1) Is true, but it is a strawman. Abortion can be permissible in some circumstances or by some methods without it being permissible in all circumstances or by all methods, so the pro-choice argument does not need to hold that abortion is permissible simpliciter.
(2) Is false. It does not follow from the permissibility of X by means [A,B,C] that [A,B,C] is permissible absent the intent to do X, much less that A is permissible absent B and C. For example: it is permissible to cut someone open for surgery, but it is not generally permissible to cut someone open; it is permissible to cut someone open [carefully, with their consent, with the intent to sew them up again], but it is not permissible to cut someone open carefully, absent consent and an intent to sew them up again.
I commented the following on Twitter:
[In the spirit of steelmanning, I’ll take a stab (pardon the pun) at your argument. P2 seems a bit confused, it should say it’s permissible to *conduct abortions* by removing 1 limb. Since removing limbs is only permitted for abortions, removing 1 limb is never permitted.
In other words, removing limbs without the intent of abortion is not permitted, so removing 1 limb, since that doesn’t cause abortion, is not permitted. But if it did cause abortion, then it would be permitted.]
Here I am arguing with that the claim “ it’s permissible to painlessly chop off one of a fetus’s arms” is a non sequitur because it is supposed to follow from “it would be permissible to conduct an abortion by painlessly chopping off all of a fetus’s arms and legs” where the operative phrase “to conduct an abortion” is not present in the statement I quoted in premise 2.
So my point is that it is permissible to maim a fetus for the purpose of conducting an abortion, whether it be 1 limb or all limbs that are removed. But since removing only 1 limb is not sufficient for conducting an abortion, it is never permissible.
Therefore it does not follow from the fact that it’s impermissible to remove a single limb from a fetus that abortion is impermissible.
To be clear, I’m pro-life and am defending a view that I don’t hold.
Most people intuitively distinguish between preventing a being from beginning to exist and causing a being to stop existing. This distinction implies the permissibility of abortion. Most people are hence committed to finding it slightly wrong to kill a fetus that has experienced a few milliseconds of consciousness, because those milliseconds produce a weak interest in continuing to exist. This is correct!
I certainly agree with the case! Good work, convincing steel man. Would be cool to see how you go about responding to it