Is Giving birth an act of force?

[Black Wolf]

A debate with somebody about abortion ended up with us arguing about whether or not giving birth was forceful. I am not sure if there has been a similar thread, but I felt there should be a topic about this. I have a solution to the question in this title, but I'm not sure about the validity of my response. I put this in political philosophy because this is a question of force = which politics answers.

Nobody consents to being born. Nobody asks their parents to give birth to them. Was the birthing mother being forceful?

My response would be: If you were to accept that conception is an act of force, then you would have to ask: who is the aggressor? A woman's only role in conception is receiving sperm and waiting. If giving birth to someone is an act of force, then who is the aggressor? The woman can't be considered the aggressor, she's only a vessel for it. If birth is an act of force, then the aggressor in question is an arbitrary being, one that is not known yet - the mother should not be considered an aggressor.

[softwareNerd]

First, a clarifying question: when you say "force" do you include things like earthquakes and hurricanes in the concept? If an earthquake destroys a house -- with no context in which some human is specifically to blame -- is the owner a victim of force?

Edited December 31, 2010 by softwareNerd

[Grames]

An act of force must have both transgressor and victim. And who would the victim be? To whom would the question be put, "Do you want to be born?"

The issue is not that the baby cannot answer, but before conception there is not even a fertilized egg in existence when the critical decision or sex act takes place. The concepts of consent and force do not even apply here. Not even Catholics have this dilemma.

[Darylium]

A baby is not a rational actor, and is as such incapable of deciding whether or not it want to be born. Therefore I think it is absurd to consider conception or birth an act of force.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Darylium

[Greebo]

The mother doesn't exactly have a choice in when she'll give birth either, or a say in how the process works.

[Jacob86]

This brings up an interesting question from the other end.

The focus from the original poster seems to be whether or not the mother is forcing the child to be born.

However, as Greebo seems to have pointed out above, another question is this:

Does the baby force the mother to give birth? Obviously the baby does not force the pregnancy (conception) but once conceived and developed, does it force the birth?? From the little that I've read/heard about pregnancy, science seems to suggest that this is so- that the child "decides" (via biological/chemical means) when the birth will happen.

[Weston]

This brings up an interesting question from the other end.

The focus from the original poster seems to be whether or not the mother is forcing the child to be born.

However, as Greebo seems to have pointed out above, another question is this:

Does the baby force the mother to give birth? Obviously the baby does not force the pregnancy (conception) but once conceived and developed, does it force the birth?? From the little that I've read/heard about pregnancy, science seems to suggest that this is so- that the child "decides" (via biological/chemical means) when the birth will happen.

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't, but this is hardly a moral issue at all. After nine months (give or take) of willing pregnancy, the woman has by now implicitly consented to give birth and to raise the child. She had nine months' worth of chances to end the pregnancy, and choosing not to do so is like signing a contract that says, "I will give birth to you and I can't complain that you forced it on me without my consent."

This of course barring any weirdo extraneous circumstances anyone might come up with.