Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are continuing our discussion today on abortion. In the last episode, we looked at the pro abortion argument, called the violinist argument or the argument from bodily autonomy. We showed how bodily autonomy fell apart, particularly as a result of responsibility. In this episode, I want to extend the discussion of the violinist rebuttal by taking a very weird approach.

And I'm not sure that this approach is strong or correct, but hopefully it's interesting at least and food for thought as minds who are greater than mine are able to maybe use this as a springboard of areas to pursue or to not pursue, to discard. So this prototype argument is going to sort of springboard off of point number one from the last episode, this idea of responsibility. And I'm going to dig a lot deeper into responsibility and see what we can get out of it. Let's start by looking at a very weird court case and this is the Phillips versus Irons court case. Phillips and Irons were a couple who were dating but they never had vaginal sex.

However, both did consensually participate in oral sex. During one sexual encounter, Irons harbored some semen in her mouth and used a turkey baster to impregnate herself. I guess she went to the bathroom and finagled some semen out of her mouth and up her vagina. And anyway, they they ended up breaking up, but a few years later, Iron sued a very surprised Phillips for child support. Iron's won, though Phillips successfully sued her for emotional damages.

So, super weird, right? Phillips ends up paying child support even though he never had vaginal sex with Irons, but she kind of deceived him and ended up having his kid, which is weird. Now, I I initially sided with Phillips because obviously, Iron's use of of his semen was unpredictable and I mean, un unconsented too. However, as I thought about responsibility, I began to change my mind started to agree with the court case. A good part of the application to our abortion discussion here is going to rely on me making the case that Phillips was rightfully found to be responsible for child support despite his intention.

If I fail to show that Phillips should be responsible for child support, then my argument breaks down. So you can can think through my argument and and figure out if you think I I make a good case for why the court case was right in finding Phillips responsible for the child that he didn't intend to have. So listen to the case that I make against Phillips and then we'll get into the application for our abortion discussion. So I'm going to make three points about responsibility here or give you kind of three examples. So first of all, potential harm helps to determine the amount of responsibility we have.

So, couple examples. Alright, when we loan something to somebody, we have certain intentions and expectations. So, if I give somebody a shovel, you know, don't use the shovel to bury murder victims or to kill people and then bury them with. If I give you a lawnmower, return the lawnmower with gas in it. I've got certain expectations for how you use equipment that I loan to you.

However, when we loan out dangerous items, we often incur some level of responsibility. And you realize this when you have to sign waivers for all kinds of rental items. If you go to rent a motorcycle or dirt bikes or something, you're going to have to sign some sort of waiver. Likewise, if you loan a car to somebody, you can take on responsibility for how that car is used. If you loan a gun to a friend who you have a strong suspicion is unstable, you could maybe not face legal, depending on the state and the situation and how much you knew.

Maybe you wouldn't face legal ramifications as far as going to jail, but you could face some recourse in terms of civil suits and having to pay for your level of responsibility. And we see this already with like parents who have unstable kids and leave guns lying around or whose kids maybe have the code to the safe and all that stuff. So, responsibility is in part determined by the potential harm that something can do. But you know, probability isn't required for responsibility, and this is point number two. Even probability isn't required for responsibility.

Even if you didn't loan a gun to someone, but you left it easily accessible, you can incur some negligent responsibility. Loaning something faulty to someone who is then injured by your faulty machine, it can also cause you to be liable. Hiring a roofer who isn't insured, though you assume they are, can leave you liable for damages. Even if you're like, well, most roofers are insured, I mean surely the roofers insured because he has a website. That you can still face responsibility for that.

If it happens on your property or if you're the one who's doing the hiring. Third, even in situations where there is trust, you have some level of responsibility. If you have a joint bank account with your spouse and one party goes on a shopping spree and takes a significant amount out of that bank, then you incur the cost of that shopping spree even though you didn't do it, even if you didn't want that to happen because you've got a joint bank account and that's on you to an extent. Now, it can be a jerk move by this other party, by your spouse. Nevertheless, you incur the responsibility for that.

You lose your resources. So let's pull all of these three ideas together and we can bring up several important details about both property and damages. So in the first example, can see that allowing others to use our property even if only for a temporary amount of time can bring consequences on us. Whereas in the first example, property was given out and used for a task that wasn't intended, in the second example, we showed that even if damages occur by someone we allow to use our property for a task we commission, like the roofer who falls, we're still liable for damages. And then the third example, we can see that during the joining of property, both parties are free to use the resources as they wish, even if it ends up hurting the other, right, with the joint bank accounts.

And finally, regardless of intent, when one engages in an event relating their property, like by loaning property, allowing someone onto your property, joining property together. There are ramifications which extend beyond the intent. The use of property almost always includes some sort of risk even if that risk is a long shot. And we see these three aspects come together in the Phillips versus Irons case. Phillips handed over his semen for a time to Irons, right?

I mean, he ejaculated and she received his semen. The semen were harbored in her mouth for a time because Phillips allowed Irons to service him and come on his property. While what Irons did was unsavory, Irons incurred unintended damages while being serviced. I'm sorry, Phillips incurred unintended damages while being serviced. But in the court case, we see that even though Phillips did have some mental anguish that resulted from what Irons did, it's important to recognize that the court case that initially came up where we're arguing for child support, that the case did not see Phillips or Irons the question was not about whether Phillips or Irons were harmed, It was about how to prevent harm and how to promote the well-being of the third party that the actions of Phillips and Irons both brought into the equation because Phillips consented to the act and trusted Irons with his resources and she used them in an unintended way but Phillips had consented to the act and had handed over that property.

And IRONS used them in a way that was inappropriate, but it got a third party involved, the child, who then needed to be taken care of, right? We could say even though being a child isn't injurious, we can say that the child was injured in a sense because as a dependent, he needs to be taken care of until, you know, they're independent. So in conclusion here, even if Phillips didn't intend or desire for his semen to undergo the biological process of conception and even if he thought that the property supplied may have been on loan and may not have had the probability of being used in that way, Phillips, in my opinion, was rightfully responsible for paying child support to this third party which he is in part responsible for. It'd be wrong to create a child even if that child was unintended and then not provide for it. We expect parents to take care of children who are unintended all the time.

And sometimes one partner didn't want the child and sometimes neither partner wanted the child. Sometimes one partner will poke a hole in a condom or the other partner will stop taking birth control, yet a child's conceived despite all sorts of precautions. And that's one reason why I think this case was really important because if Phillips could argue that this is not what he intended, what would that mean for people who poke holes in condoms or don't take birth control? You know, they could argue that and refuse to take responsibility for a kid. And that would actually be deleterious for women because guys could argue that all the time.

So legally, once a child reaches a certain age of development, a lack of intent can do nothing to save both parents from taking care of their child. Therefore, Phillips is rightfully responsible for the well-being of his child. The rationale for Phillips paying child support has nothing to do with irons. He's not responsible for paying for an STD, he's not responsible for paying abortion costs, etc. The responsibility comes from his property and action having brought a third party who needs care under his responsibility even if that property and his action were intended for something different.

So this is the case for a man, it seems to be the same for a woman. Her act and use of her body have brought a third party under her responsibility independent of the man in this relationship. So the man's right to his property and freedom from his actions dissipates when those things impinge on the well-being of another, which is the embryo. Okay. If you don't agree with me at this point, then you can just stop listening because I've made the case for why Phillips should be responsible for paying child support because his actions and use of his property led to the damage or responsibility of a third party, of another individual.

And it seems like the logic would hold there. So, if you agree with me, let's break some of this down here. We can use a reductio ad absurdum here to show you just kind of some of the crazy things that can come about. So if women lose their responsibility to a child due to intent, right? So, if a mother says, I don't want my property, my body to be used by the child on my organs, then why shouldn't a man lose their responsibility based on intent?

Right? So a woman is pregnant with a child and the man says, I don't want my sperm to be used anymore in the fusing with that egg. So I know that they came together to make an embryo, but half of that embryo is mine, so abort it. Or in the Phillips case any man can say, Hey look, I never my intent for my sperm was never to create a child so I should not be responsible for child support. We likely all agree that a man's intent for his omissions don't justify financial omissions should a child be brought into the world.

Likewise, the woman knows that engaging in sex has the potential to bring a third party into the equation for whose sustenance her uterus is required at least for a time in order to sustain. So certainly there are different costs and likely not exactly equivalent, but the happenstance of biology just doesn't negate obligation. Women certainly get the short end of the stick here in terms of how biology works in pregnancy, but that make the responsibility different in terms of in any terms because the issue in question here isn't Phillips or Irons, the mother or the father, the question is there is a third party here that you two are responsible for. If pro choice advocates want to argue that the woman is not obligated based on her intent and the retaining of her property rights to her organs, then the man's obligation should not be required either. And I'm not going to argue that because men should have to pay child support and their intent is irrelevant in terms of what actually ends up happening as use of their bodies, and bringing a third party into the equation makes them responsible, regardless of intent.

The second thing is, if we throw off number one there, the last point that we made, then the man's semen should remain his property even when handed over to the woman. He should have a say in abortions or say, Look, you can keep the kid but I'm not going to pay. The third thing here is that we can't use bodily autonomy to justify killing. The bodily autonomy argument has gained traction in our society because everyone recognizes that the fetus is a living human being. Yet using property to justify the killing of another in this case seems to defy all common sense.

So we sequester land assets that pose a significant threat to the environment or to endangered species. We in order to preserve life, even the lives of animals and unborn animals at that, like I think DDT and eggshells and all that. Going even further, we would find it abhorrent if a mine owner were to blow up a shaft with workers stuck at the bottom or forego a rescue attempt for for trapped workers. And if he gave reason of finance or inconvenience, he would likely be held criminally responsible. Yet, we use a property argument to justify the act of killing of humans all the time in instances where the mother's life or extreme well-being are not even in question.

Even in cases where the property of our body is directly affected, we would not find it justifiable to actively pursue the death of another. We wouldn't allow the murder of one conjoined twin by another, the murder of an Ebola infected toddler who could spread the illness to his mother, or the murder of one who's shackled to you, like I think brother where art there, right? It just, we don't use bodily autonomy, we can't use it to justify killing, yet we do here. Another thing that you see, fourth thing here is, I think the Phillips Irons case helps you to see even more clearly that the reason the judge could rule, as he did, one reason, is that on trial here weren't Phillips and Irons, that wasn't really what was in view. What was in view was the victim and what the violinist argument tends to do is it pits the fetus as an aggressor rather than a victim who comes into the scenario based on the actions of others.

And that's just wrong. The fetus is not an aggressor, it's a victim. And finally, even if the fetus were an aggressor, even if we can go ahead and agree there, we don't allow unjustified violence and self defense. We know the results of nearly all pregnancies which are not life threatening or even seriously injurious. So, even if the fetus is an aggressor, we know what that type of aggressor tends to result in and it's not significant for most mothers.

It's inconvenient, it's hard to a certain extent, and certainly very hard and inconvenient and even potentially damaging to a number of mothers, but not to most. So hopefully this little exploration was at least interesting. Definitely look into the Phillips Irons case more, dig deeper, think about implications of property. I know that when I was talking with with an atheist friend who is pro abortion, he was saying that it makes him very uncomfortable here to use property language when we're talking about our our body. I guess you could you could change that in terms of, you know, not calling semen our property and whatnot.

Nevertheless, I would think that regardless of what you call it, that the the logic still stands that our actions have consequences regardless of our intent, regardless of if we trust somebody with with something and all that would still stand. We could just use, I don't know, more sympathetic or or more precise language in in order to hash this out. So hopefully somebody can can take this and if there's anything worthwhile in it, make it way better than I've I've, made it. But that's all for now. So peace, because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean.