I wouldn’t quite say that I take the revealed preference more seriously than the overt one. I’m prepared to accept that there may be people who genuinely believe that abortion is morally wrong and also genuinely believe that other people (and possibly they themselves) will succumb to temptation and have an abortion if it is legal and available even if they believe it is wrong. We generally accept the reality of akrasia here, this seems like a very similar phenomenon: the belief that people can’t be trusted to do what is morally right when faced with an unwanted pregnancy and so need to make a Ulysses pact in advance to bind themselves against temptation.
The reason this argument doesn’t hold water for me is because I don’t think it is right that people who believe abortion is morally wrong should be able to prevent others who don’t share that belief from having abortions. If an ‘opt-in’ anti-abortion law was proposed where you voluntarily committed to being jailed for having an abortion in advance of needing one I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
In reality I don’t know what percentage of women with anti-abortion beliefs use this kind of reasoning. I have heard it explicitly from people who have taken drugs in the past and still support prohibition however.
Note the image in the banner of “Overcoming Bias”...
I would be against an opt-in anti-abortion law, since unlike with akrasia I see no reason to prefer the earlier preference over the later one in this instance.
In reality I don’t know what percentage of women with anti-abortion beliefs use this kind of reasoning.
I used to be friends with someone who was an anti-abortion activist, and who likes thinking about the logic behind such decisions. To the best of my knowledge, she’d never thought about it from that angle. I think I still have a good email address for her, if you’d like me to ask her what she thinks of the idea.
I got an email back from her. Tl;dr version: Nope, that’s definitely not how she was thinking about it. (Perhaps noteworthy: She rarely communicates via email, so she’s out of her element here. It is possible to evoke saner discussion from her in realtime.)
As far as the comment from the blogger on that website, it sounds to me that they have a very bland argument. First, most women who are against abortion have had abortions and know the harm caused to the child, but also the harm that happens to them. Second, there are plenty of pro-life women who have had “unplanned” pregnancies and continue to have the child. Can you imagine the conversation with your child that goes like this-, “You are so lucky! You came when I wanted you! I chose not to abort you! Isn’t that GREAT!?” I can’t even imagine saying that to someone. We are against abortion because it is intrinsically wrong to take the life of an unborn baby. There have been many people that lived through botched up abortions and couldn’t understand why no one wanted them. They are unwanted because they are, unplanned, or they are “messed up”(which is inaccurate most times). Can you imagine growing up being “lucky”?
this blogger also implies that we as humans have no self control. It implies that we have no way to make the right decision. Anyone who is pro-life, never becomes pro-choice. It is always the other way around. Our motivation to being pro-life is that there is an innocent life at stake. Well, there are two innocent lives at stake. The mother is also at risk. People forget about that part. The information given to women who get abortions is not complete. If a woman has a miscarriage, and has to have the remains removed from her body, they go to the hospital, they are put to sleep, and a trained OBGYN or doctor is used to perform a Dilation and Cutterage or D&C. This is a one day procedure and normal hospital cost for this is about 20,000 dollars. So tell me why a procedure at an abortion mill can cost between 400-900 dollars and normally the girls are not put to sleep. One of the worst things is hemorrhaging after the procedure. In a hospital, if you leave and you pass out right outside the door (or anywhere) because of that, the hospital will take you back in, the abortion mill won’t even call an ambulance. There are tons of other things that can happen that the abortion mill will not take responsibility for. Putting that aside, the topic also takes away from the fact that the whole reason we are pro-life is for life. Thats it. Plain and simple. It is not about us, it is about innocent lives being lied to and lives being taken. I wish that people who are pro choice would explain what it is that they are choosing. The more we continue with the advances of technology, the more scientists are finding that human life is very much there when conception occurs. The pro choice people say that there is no life until a certain time. Technology is proving otherwise. My simple thing has always been, if there is no life, then what are they killing?
Email sent. I’ll quote the relevant bit here, in case it turns out to affect her reply. (I did link to the conversation but I’m not sure she’ll follow the link.)
I am writing for a more interesting reason than just to keep in touch, though. One of the places I’ve been spending my time at online is a rationalist forum, and a few of the members were discussing abortion law. One of them suggested that the main reason that women who believe abortion is wrong support anti-abortion laws is that having such a law in place would reduce the temptation they’d feel if they had an unwanted pregnancy, as opposed to supporting such a law primarily to take rights away from others who may not share their beliefs. That didn’t sound to me like what you’ve talked about, but it has some interesting implications (it might be easier for you guys to get a law passed where women could voluntarily sign up to have abortion illegal for themselves, kind of like the laws that let gambling addicts sign up to not be allowed into casinos). What do you think?
I wouldn’t quite say that I take the revealed preference more seriously than the overt one. I’m prepared to accept that there may be people who genuinely believe that abortion is morally wrong and also genuinely believe that other people (and possibly they themselves) will succumb to temptation and have an abortion if it is legal and available even if they believe it is wrong. We generally accept the reality of akrasia here, this seems like a very similar phenomenon: the belief that people can’t be trusted to do what is morally right when faced with an unwanted pregnancy and so need to make a Ulysses pact in advance to bind themselves against temptation.
The reason this argument doesn’t hold water for me is because I don’t think it is right that people who believe abortion is morally wrong should be able to prevent others who don’t share that belief from having abortions. If an ‘opt-in’ anti-abortion law was proposed where you voluntarily committed to being jailed for having an abortion in advance of needing one I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
In reality I don’t know what percentage of women with anti-abortion beliefs use this kind of reasoning. I have heard it explicitly from people who have taken drugs in the past and still support prohibition however.
Note the image in the banner of “Overcoming Bias”...
I would be against an opt-in anti-abortion law, since unlike with akrasia I see no reason to prefer the earlier preference over the later one in this instance.
I used to be friends with someone who was an anti-abortion activist, and who likes thinking about the logic behind such decisions. To the best of my knowledge, she’d never thought about it from that angle. I think I still have a good email address for her, if you’d like me to ask her what she thinks of the idea.
I’d be curious to know if anti-abortion activists think about it in those terms.
I got an email back from her. Tl;dr version: Nope, that’s definitely not how she was thinking about it. (Perhaps noteworthy: She rarely communicates via email, so she’s out of her element here. It is possible to evoke saner discussion from her in realtime.)
Email sent. I’ll quote the relevant bit here, in case it turns out to affect her reply. (I did link to the conversation but I’m not sure she’ll follow the link.)