Pro-choice people: Can nursing mothers without access to formula kill newborns?

[Kingpoleon]

I come from a pretty rural, VERY poor part of Arkansas. The women there are “forced” to use their bodies to breastfeed because they cannot afford formula, and their doctors, backed by WHO, recommend it because it reduces infant death rates several fold. Are the women there allowed to refuse to breastfeed and thus kill their child because the newborn forces them to use their body against their will?

[Kingpoleon]

To be clear, this is addressed to those who do not argue for abortion because the unborn are less sentient, but because people can be killed if their life depends upon the violation of bodily autonomy.

[Kingpoleon]

This is not an argument made in good faith. Indeed it's an argument that no one is making. Withholding food to an infant is infanticide. It has nothing to do with 'bodily autonomy'.

I have talked to several pro choice friends of mine. A majority of them agree that if a woman does not have access to formula, she can not be forced to use her body to provide food for newborns.

I’m asking for consistency on bodily autonomy - what is the alternative to being FORCED to use their bodies if women can’t access formula?

[Kingpoleon]

And I'm asking you. Do you understand lactation? Expressing milk? Mastisis?

What in particular about it? Am I familiar with breastfeeding, its health benefits, and a handful of risks? Yes. For example, it is well established that breastfeeding within the first hour of life significantly increases the baby’s chance at surviving for a number of reasons. Nourishment, bonding, its role as the first and most potent vaccine, reduced risks of SIDS, etc.

The Trump administration received a range of criticism for opposing medically prescribing breastfeeding.

[Kingpoleon]

No I'm asking you not about the properties of milk, but how a woman lactates, what her body does and what she needs to do about it.

Obviously, I'm not getting anywhere but breast milk isn't a tap. A woman can't choose one day to 'stop'. Milk needs to be expressed even if a woman choses not to use it and to use formula at least until such times as her body adjusts. Many women who miscarry can still, with great psychological trauma lactate and will still need to express. Not expressing can also cause pain and infection.

To not feed a child to let it starve is infanticide. Breast milk is a bodily secretion, not a part of a woman's body. I have no idea why you think a woman would theoretically squirt her milk down a drain in spite rather than feed a child.

Breast milk is produced by the woman’s body - newborns are nearly as dependent upon women as fetuses are, especially in areas without access to formula. I allege that parents have a duty, from the beginning of a baby’s life, to nurture that baby. It is inconsistent to rely upon an argument of bodily autonomy and then pretend that bodily autonomy will no longer be infringed after birth.

In earlier times before formula, babies were fed other milk (often from other women as wet nurses) or even wine, honey and eggs. There are four thousand year old feeding vessels.

That’s a good way to kill a baby, to feed it wine and honey.

I am disappointed that nobody has referenced the violinist thought experiment, which would logically lead to the conclusion of the topic question and I have seen posited as a strong argument against the pro-life position.

I did not come up with it myself - a Methodist liberal pro lifer I follow on social media made the argument today in that context, as a response to the violinist argument.

This is not an argument made in good faith.

/thread

You don't insult your way to winning an argument. This adoption of rhetoric from the dirtbag left is above you, Tony, and I think you know that as well as I do.

[Kingpoleon]

I was reacting to a point of view I felt was being strongly implied in the thread. I'll be happy to be proved wrong if this proved to be an inaccurate assumption.

Breastfeeding is widely recommended in the medical community. In fact, it is recommended as exclusive nourishment in the first six months of life.

https://www.who.int/news/item/31-07-2018-3-in-5-babies-not-breastfed-in-the-first-hour-of-life
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/3/e827

This isn't worth my time.

Bodily autonomy is not infringed by having to feed a baby however you choose to do so. A baby is in fact so autonomous from it's mother after birth that other people can feed it.

Breastfeeding is a violation of bodily autonomy:

“Autonomy is commonly understood in reference to an individual’s ability to consider their own welfare and make decisions accordingly. And, whilst a woman is almost always sovereign over her own body, she is also responsible for her baby, as babies cannot autonomously make decisions, nor act on them. For mothers, a definition of autonomy would need to include two persons at least, and this interplay is not yet fully understood when it comes to breastfeeding.”
http://breastfeedingandfeminism.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Yate_Handout.pdf

[Kingpoleon]

The problem here is with this odd assertion that a lot of people seem to make that bodily autonomy is a right that, unlike literally every other right we have, is completely unrestricted. MRDA to me saying this, but this just isn't the way normal moral reasoning on the subject works. Seatbelt laws and breathalyzer tests are obvious, straightforward infringements on bodily autonomy, but nobody thinks of them as human rights violations. The bodily autonomy argument for abortion rights is strongest when the point being made is (as Beet says above) that pregnancy is a uniquely demanding process, not when it's framed as this absurd claim that no violation of bodily autonomy is ever acceptable under any circumstances. That just isn't how people actually think about right and wrong.

That’s exactly how they justify it. Raising an infant is not less demanding than pregnancy, for that matter. Human babies are somewhat uniquely incapable of even the most basic tasks for years. Singer and Appel have explained before the minimal distinction between a baby up until 6-12 months and even a fetus at 8-9 weeks.

[Kingpoleon]

At least in the context of the United States, and I would presume the rest of the developed world, this is an argument in bad faith for the simple reason that there is no lack of access to formula. One of the aspects of the WIC program is to provide formula free of charge to moms who either cannot or choose not to breastfeed but could not otherwise afford to do so.

Moreover, even if that were not the case, the alternative to giving the child up for adoption is clearly both readily available and morally superior to infanticide.

What sort of morality only works in the developed world?

Similarly, in most of the non-developed world, adoption programs take months to take children and many of them are covers for human trafficking. Hardly a serious alternative.

[Kingpoleon]

Compared to infanticide?  I think it's fairly obvious who's not being serious here.

No, compared to breastfeeding.

[Kingpoleon]

You can't even parse your own analogy properly, how sad.  No wonder they no longer include analogies on the SAT; kids today never learn how to handle them. Here, let me help you.

Here is the analogy you are making,
carrying to term : abortion :: breastfeeding : infanticide

You're comparing abortion to infanticide and carrying to term with breastfeeding.

Of course, your analogy ignores the fact that with our current capabilities, the only  way to not carry a fetus to term is by abortion, whereas there are many alternative results to not breastfeeding a child other than infanticide and the use of formula.

My analogy, as a response to the violinist argument, is not absolutely practical in nature; nor is what it refutes. Theoretical morality, rather different from in practice.

[Kingpoleon]

Since you're basing your argument solely on theory and ignoring the real world, would it be safe to say you're either an economist or a sociologist? (Or even worse, a political scientist!!!!)

Philosophy and debate, even with abortion, often revolves around theoretical questions.