The trolley problem and abortion

Jessie
Jessie
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

I’m sure someone more brilliant than me has already put it this way. But I’ve been kicking this idea around.

Ben Shapiro puts is as “you cannot be forced to donate your kidneys, even to your kids”. I am unclear on his views of abortion — or rather I don’t recall what point he used this phrase to back up on his show maybe a week ago. The phrase has been bouncing around my head a lot. Here is the weird part about this phrase.

Every parent I know would cut out their heart to give it to their child. They work stupid hours to send their children to private universities, take their kids on vacations, put up with hours of screaming, crying. My mom chased me out into the street barefoot in the middle of winter on many occasions. And for what? For their kids to move out, start their own lives, and build autonomy.

Look at it logically — there is no useful reason to have a child, or at least not one we conventionally think of as the right reason to have a child. Do you want to brag about your child to your friends? Do you want someone to keep you company where you are old? Do you want to relive your childhood?

I am at a loss for a logical reason for wanting a kid.

But, the human race is — for the most part — biologically hardwired to want one desperately. More than sleep, food, free time, happiness, or love, we want to raise a happy and successful child. We want all the things for them that we are giving up to bets equip them to succeed. But, I digress; and I very much want children when I grow up.

Regardless of whether you would donate a kidney to your own kids, by law, you cannot be forced to. And the trolley problem explains why this is counter to how most people define morality.

For those unfamiliar, it is basically, will you push one person into an oncoming trolley to save 5? Which is then extrapolated to a man walks into the hospital, he is a match for a heart, lunges, liver, and two kidneys for patients in the hospital — ergo his death would save five lives. But, unlike pushing someone into the trolley to save 5 people, this one seems to lend different moral conclusions. Now, I could go on a tirade about Utilitarianism and Peter Singer’s ethics vs. pragmatism, but I am not going to for the sake of time.

So, since you cannot be forced to be an organ donor (because of freedom of religion), you have inherent autonomy under US law over your own body. (Note: I cannot digress into the moral argument for the purpose of this post because I will get carpal tunnel) You have a certain ‘right to choose’ what to do with your body.

So now, we finally get to the issue I want to write about — abortion: the killing of unborn babies. You have a right to choose what happens to your body when you die, and whether or not to donate a kidney to anyone. Therefore, you legally have a right to control your body while you are alive. Whether to donate your uterus to preserving the life of another human.

Legally, freedom of religion should not protect your organs inside your body after your death and also deny a woman’s right to kill the baby inside of her. I use harsh language intentionally.

Now, lets talk about babies — this one inside you are killing. You do not have to die to have a baby (obviously) but the baby will die if you don’t “carry” it. But, you do sacrifice almost 20 years of your life raising it. The obligation to offspring is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, meeting their needs mostly before your own. To not do this, is to be a bad parent.

A boy I know likes to argues the decision to have kids should be the net cost to you, your family, and society vs. the premium a child places on existence. I shall not be entertaining this concept in this article since again it would get too long. Depending on how high you assign a premium to existence, let it be better for the unborn child to not exist than to exist in an unhappy and mistreated state. I also don’t think it is good for the psyche of a child to be born into an unwanted family. I think adoption is possible but too many kids end up in the foster system rather than loving homes. And I will not even dip into what is wrong with the foster care system right now — since I one, don’t know enough, and two, am already rambling.

And so, a opinion (and decision) on abortion should come down to this question: Is it better to not have a kid or to be a bad/unwilling/single/unready parent?

Jessie

Written by

Jessie

Just a girl thinking about what goes on in the world; this is just an open space to unload thoughts from my head. University of Chicago ‘20