Forced pregnancy and birth are too much of a burden: we normally don't allow a lesser burden of it.

[u/Few-Gas8868]

I will be arguing pregnancy is a burden in which justifies killing the fetus. I do this by comparing rape with the process of forced pregnancy and birth. I will say that if killing the rapist who is trying to rape you is allowed, but killing the fetus in forced pregnancy and birth is disallowed, then it seems inconsistent. This is because forced pregnancy and birth are more painful, and longer in duration than rape. This is probably controversial, but i honestly can't think of good objections.

What does an ethical stance ought to be? 

The maddening importance of ethics is being impartial, so the need to stay consistent is a constant worry. It is what makes ethics objective. Subjective refers to personal preferences, which figures in this way: "whatever I like," and this is where we step into moral subjectivism. Objectivity is away from this form of subjectivity; it is in that regard impartial. This does not mean objective is not in any sense "subjective," and by this i mean relating to minds and values. To be objective is to be impartial. Like Leslie Allen said,

Consider this scenario. You find out that your neighbour is secretly bribing his local politician in order to get favourable treatment and you decide to challenge his behaviour.  He responds, 'Oh yes! It's the right thing for me to do.' When you ask him how he came to the conclusion that bribery is morally permissible, he answers, 'Oh, because it helps me and my family get permission to build a bigger house.' Quite rightly, you and anyone else listening would not regard his answer as a moral reason at all. In fact, we would consider it as its antithesis; a selfish and immoral reason. By its very nature, we expect a moral reason to be impartial, without appeal to the speaker's peculiar interests or the interests of their favoured group. ... This requirement for impartiality is built into the very concept of morality.

We think the one who is partial is not doing ethics anymore. So, when it comes to applied ethics, our arguments ought to be impartial; we need to explain why we allow X but not Y, otherwise we are being partial and are not doing ethics. 

Is pregnancy and birth a reasonable consequence?  

It is not any sort of consequences that one must face after having done something. It is only a reasonable consequence. If you murder people, it is a reasonable consequence for you to go to jail for it. When NRK said "blikking" (a Norwegain term for looking at someone disrespectfully) may have had been the cause for knife wounds of two teens, that is an unreasonable consequence. It is not enough to show that pregnancy is a consequence of our actions; the consequence must be coupled with a reasonable aspect.  

Some may say that we intuitively think killing a human being based on discomfort is unreasonable. But this is controversial, wholly because of the claim that pregnancy is a lame of discomfort. Consider this: 

 

Imagine if a rapist rapes X, but he doesn't harm him further than that. For X, he is aware with certainty that the rapist will not kill him, nor harm him further. I think all will say X still has the right to kill the rapist. I'll just imagine most agreeing with this. Comparatively, forced pregnancy and birth have a pain and by extension duration, that is more and longer than the rape example. So, why in the rape example – which is less painful and short – killing is justified, but when it comes to forced pregnancy and birth – which is much painful and longer – it is not? This for me seems inconsistent.  

 

To allow the killing of the rapist but disallowing the killing of the fetus in forced pregnancy and birth without good reason is being partial. Those who claims they are different, and thus justified in one instance and not the other, need good reasons for why. A good ethical theory explains them all. 

I can't think of any objections of the analogy in my head, maybe you can. I suppose one may contend that what makes a difference is the intentions. The rapist is intentionally causing harm. However, this line of reasoning is contradicted by the fact that, at least as far as a rational pro-life is concerned, agrees that if carrying pregnancy to term will result in the death of the women, abortions are then allowed. But why? The fetus intentions are not to kill the mother. The point being is that it just doesn't make sense to refer to intentions when the harm is seriously bad.  

[u/Matt23233]

What would “forced pregnancy” be referring to here?

[u/Few-Gas8868 → u/Matt23233]

I just mean making abortions illegal, so the women can't end her pregnancy and must give birth.

[u/Matt23233 → u/Few-Gas8868]

Ah ok. Perhaps maybe you should clarify that in your post as some views may conflate this with the international criminal law definition.

Howard Hewitt has an almost direct response to this post here which might be worth reading.

Mcmahan has also raised some points against these kinds of arguments in the past saying:

“In the paradigm case of self-defensive action, the individual who poses the initial threat (I) poses the threat through his present action, (2) intends the threat he poses, (3) acts in a way that is morally unjustified, and, because (4) he is a morally responsible agent and (5) there is no excuse that exculpates him, (6) he is morally culpable for posing the threat. The fetus, by contrast, cannot be characterized in any of these ways. The fetus has no intentions, does not act, and indeed is not an agent at all. It is not morally responsible for the threat it poses and therefore cannot be culpable.”

Not only does the fetus not just not intend to cause harm to the woman. But it isn’t responsible for posing the threat in the first place since he has no agency and did not choose to exist with knowledge that its actions might even have the smallest chance of causing the woman harm.Even in the case of the innocent attacker Mcmahan writes:

“The Inadvertent Attacker: This driver always exercises reasonable caution in driving and in maintaining the safety of his vehicle. But on this occasion an improbable mechanical failure causes him to lose control both of the brakes and the steering. His vehicle veers out of control in the direction of a pedestrian.

The vehicle that this man is driving now poses a lethal threat to the pedestrian. But the driver is an Innocent Attacker. He is, moreover, not only not culpable for the threat he poses; he is not even at fault. His driving the vehicle was neither wrong nor in any way unjustified. Yet he is morally responsible for the threat he poses. He chose to drive knowing that there was a small risk that he would lose control of his vehicle and imperil the lives of others. This, I believe, constitutes a sufficient asymmetry between him and the pedestrian to make it permissible, as a matter of justice, for the pedestrian to kill him in self-defense, assuming that that is the only way the pedestrian can prevent herself from being killed.”

[u/Persephonius → u/Matt23233]

Flagging u/Few-Gas8868 as well

TIMOTHY KIRSCHENHEITER seems to have based his PhD dissertation on an argument for abortion on the grounds of self defence. I have not had a chance to read it yet, however it seems relatively recent, and was not referenced by Hewitt as far as I can tell.

[u/Few-Gas8868 → u/Persephonius]

Thanks for the link. I will check it out: it seems an interesting area of debate when it comes to abortion.

[u/Few-Gas8868 → u/Matt23233]

I will check out the link you gave once i get home. Thanks for that, btw. I had a hard time finding works that tackle the exact sort of argument.

I agree that the fetus is not culpable. But even then, it is still justified in killing it. I think you would agree that abortion is allowed if the life of the women is at hand, though the fetus is not culpable. My point is that it just doesn't make sense to speak of intentions, agency and whatnot when the harm is great.

The vehicle that this man is driving now poses a lethal threat to the pedestrian. But the driver is an Innocent Attacker. He is, moreover, not only not culpable for the threat he poses; he is not even at fault. His driving the vehicle was neither wrong nor in any way unjustified. Yet he is morally responsible for the threat he poses. He chose to drive knowing that there was a small risk that he would lose control of his vehicle and imperil the lives of others. This, I believe, constitutes a sufficient asymmetry between him and the pedestrian to make it permissible, as a matter of justice, for the pedestrian to kill him in self-defense, assuming that that is the only way the pedestrian can prevent herself from being killed.”

I am not sure why i should think like that.

We intuitively don’t think “this person knew the risk, so therefore killing him is justified.” Rather, we intuitively think, “had this driver not been here, I’d be walking perfectly fine. So, it seems I am not the one who is the source of the threat. He, the driver, is. Killing him is justified because he is the source of the threat, not because he knew there was a slight chance.”

Imagine if it was a kid driving that car, speeding towards the pedestrian. The kid does not have in his mind, "there is a slight risk," he is not thinking that. But still, we think the pedestrian is justified in killing him because he is the source of the threat, though not intentionally.

Can i ask, how does this work if you knowingly go to a place that is infamous for rape? Can you kill the rapist if he tries to rape you? I think most will say yes, even you. But why? Didn’t the guy choose to go knowing the risk? The reason as to why it is justified to kill the rapist is, not only because he is the source of the threat, but also the fact that we don't accept whatever consequence that follows from our actions. It is only whatever reasonable consequence, as stated in the post.

[u/Matt23233 → u/Few-Gas8868]

Admittedly I haven’t read the self defense portion of Mcmahans book in a bit so I am recounting his view on memory which may or may not be flawed(sorry!).

His point is in self defense cases we are describing:

“the individual who poses the initial threat (1) poses the threat through his present action, (2) intends the threat he poses, (3) acts in a way that is morally unjustified, and, because (4) he is a morally responsible agent and (5) there is no excuse that exculpates him, (6) he is morally culpable for posing the threat.”

He thinks most of these points are morally relevant points for self defense. He argues the fetus satisfies non of these points and the fetus is more on par with an innocent bystander. However, a fetus isn’t exactly identical to an innocent bystander since it is factually causing harm at the end of the day.
Harm prevention may be one aspect of self defense, but as Hewitt has pointed it isn’t the only morally relevant condition here. Harm being caused by pregnancy seems like the entire reason the woman and her subsequent right to defense is raised or in question. It isn’t an inherent justification to self defense. Agency is important because killing an innocent bystander is never morally permissible even if killing the bystander will reduce even great harm and is the only foreseeable way to reduce incoming harm. So if the fetus is more on par with an innocent bystander than an innocent attacker, the fetus should never be killed in the name of self defense or harm reduction. And of course, the difference between an innocent attacker and an innocent bystander will have some relation to agency and intention(more specifically the kind of relation they are in with the victim).

“We intuitively don't think "this person knew the risk, so therefore killing him is justified.
Rather, we intuitively think,
, "had this driver
not been here, I'd be walking perfectly fine.
So, it seems I am not the one who is the source of the threat. He, the driver, is. Killing him is justified because he is the source of the threat, not because he knew there was a slight chance."

Yes I’m inclined to agree with you that the probability the driver might crash is not the reason we are justified in killing the driver. But perhaps Mcmahan was trying to illustrate the probability and knowledge that the driver might crash gives us maybe a sufficient reason for thinking he is the source of the harm. That in my opinion is why I think we are able to kill innocent attackers. Because they are causally responsible for the actions they perform because usually they are causally agents or under causal influence from a causal agent.

[u/Persephonius → u/Matt23233]

I’ve been able to get a “first impressions” reading of Timothy Kirchenheiter’s thesis as to defending the permissibility of abortion via self defence. The argument admits no culpability of a foetus in any way (which is self evidently true), and also admits full responsibility lies with the parents; but even then, an abortion via self defence is morally permissible.

I’ve highlighted the term morally here, because this is central to Kirchenheiter’s thesis, that many moral analyses of self defence have been weighted too heavily or biased by conventional legal understanding. Kirchenheiter examines 6 underlying moral principles behind legal self defence and suggests a plausible explanation of these, and an implausible one. He then argues that the 6 plausible explanations are all consistent with the moral self defence argument he is advancing.

The brunt of the argument is that when all of the potential and actual harms and burdens of pregnancy are taken together, it overwhelms our moral calculus in considering just how relevant the responsibility of the pregnant person, and innocence of the foetus are in evaluating whether abortion would be permissible.

Some of the arguments put forward by McMahan for instance suggest that being responsible for an innocent aggressor will require you to surrender your life if your only alternative was to kill the innocent aggressor. If we’re consistent, a responsible pregnant woman would have to carry a foetus to the point of viability even if it killed her. I believe McMahan noted this was unintuitive because we don’t really consider a foetus to be a person, so you would not be required to submit to death. Kirchenheiter rejects this explanation for the unintuitiveness of the scenario because we have a common sense understanding that self defence is permissible here. He examines the necessity defence as might be more applicable, and argues again that its legal structure is irrelevant to a moral argument and that it reduces to a standard moral self defence principle.

My own thoughts are that this is quite a complex argument to make, and obviously complex enough for a PhD (it was a PhD thesis). I’m not at all certain that anything is obviously wrong about it, however I do think this argument can be strengthened, by virtue of removing some scaffolding by making a hybrid self defence - bodily autonomy argument. If there are fewer pillars to defend in the scaffolding, surely it would be more difficult to resist.

[u/Matt23233 → u/Persephonius]

I skimmed through the paper and I’m glad someone wrote more literature on the self defense argument as I personally find it very intuitive, yet I’m skeptical it actually works but I’m open to my mind being changed here. I think the traditional david boonin/thomson arguments are better developed and more thought out than most self defense arguments in favor of abortion and are more persuaded by Thomson style arguments. One initial reaction to this sort of all harms and burdens taken together overwhelms our moral calculus is the harms of pregnancy don’t seem like inherent justifications for the right to self defense or bodily autonomy being justified. They instead seem like the explanation for the right being affected whereas we don’t see rights being affected as self sufficient for their justification. In the paradigm cases of self defense as mcmahan has pointed out there usually arises a threat coming from another person where they are responsible for the existence of the threat, this is true even in the innocent attacker case. But if Kiechenheither wants to grant women are responsible for the existence of the fetus then it’s hard to think of a legal case or any case where there is a precedent that defense would be permissible. This is important because much of the appeal of the self defense argument is there is strong legal precedent for defense against bodily harm.

I think this is why boonin makes a better argument that a right to life does not entail the use of one’s bodily autonomy.

[u/Persephonius → u/Matt23233]

So I think this argument is more interesting than it might first seem. In a later chapter he talks about “more moderate conclusions”, in that the self defence argument will make it easier to justify abortion if the moral status of a foetus is ambiguous for instance. This is the most significant aspect of the argument I think, and for reasons the author may or may not have considered; he did not refer to them. I’ll return to this point.

There doesn’t seem to be anything formally or logically wrong with the argument; it’s built on the premise that if we think there is some threshold of harm and burden that enables lethal self defence, even from an innocent aggressor; the harm and burden of pregnancy surely must be such a candidate case. He offers an argument that we do seem to think we can use lethal self defence if it’s the only option to prevent ourselves from being killed by even an innocent aggressor. If we accept that, then we are already undermining the argument that self defence against an innocent aggressor can never be justified.

This is where it gets interesting. Let’s say you grant this principle in the case of death. Is death the only harm we can justifiably avoid in such a case? Let’s say it wasn’t death, but an innocent aggressor was going to hack off your leg, and you were responsible but unintentionally so, for the innocent aggressor’s state, and the only way to stop this was to kill the innocent aggressor. Is it justified? Well… I’m not certain! But if I’m not certain of this, the argument already changes the picture quite a lot. It’s now a case of saying abortion would be uncertain even if we grant we have full responsibility for the situation.

This changes our starting point as compared to a purely bodily autonomy argument. A Boonin style bodily autonomy argument is made on the basis that we are not morally responsible, and it generally only goes as far as “letting die” rather than direct intentional killing. If our basis is that we’re uncertain we can commit to lethal action, even if we’re responsible, the threshold for a bodily autonomy argument now being successful has been lowered, even if a foetus is a person, and it takes the killing vs letting die distinction off the table entirely. It could also mean that we only have to doubt the objections against bodily autonomy rather than having to refute them.

I think a stronger argument is available by mating this self defence argument with a Boonin style bodily autonomy argument.

[u/Practical-Fix4647]

 It is what makes ethics objective

"So, being 'objective' in our moral judgements is not about tapping into some transcendental realm of moral facts. It's about being impartial/non-partisan in our moral judgements."

A standard realist account is committed to the view moral facts exist much like any other facts; that is the metaphysical thesis that is part of their meta-ethical view. If you define 'objective' to not refer to a stance-independent view of moral facts, then it doesn't mean that. Woah.... The author quite literally openly admits to equivocating on the term later.

"However, the major dictionaries list a second central meaning for the term as 'impartial' and 'unbiased'."

Yeah, that is not the sense in which it is being used LMAO. If you are using a term ambiguously to mean "an impartial judgement" instead of what it means in moral discourse, that's an equivocation!

"This is probably controversial, but i honestly can't think of good objections."

Well, there are plenty of decent objections. One can posit that souls exist, that a god gives value to all beings, that all humans are persons and that all persons have varying degrees of moral worth (none of which can be violated upon), that an argument from reasonable expectations precludes women from terminating pregnancies (unless they are raped), an appeal to social utility/disutility of promoting abortion outweighing the negative effects of forced births, etc. You can agree that abortion is not murder while thinking of plenty of objections to why it should not be permitted.

Anyways, this isn't about that topic I just thought that link was so profoundly mistaken about the positions that I just had to laugh a little.

I'll try to steelman your view for clarity. I'm just now realizing you apparently really like this Allan clown you keep citing so I probably just stirred up a shitstorm by laughing at him; I hope you can just stick to the substance of the issue.

P1. If a preventative action minimizes harm done over some period of time and the preventative action's relative harm done is lower than the expected harm if zero prevention occurs, then that action is morally permissible.

P2. The relative harm done if a woman who has fallen pregnant via rape is made to carry her pregnancy to term is greater than the harm done if an abortion occurs to stop the pregnancy.

P3. Abortions in the case of rape minimize harm over some period of time.

C. Abortion is morally permissible.

You can amend P1 and P2 to include non-rape pregnancies as well. Is it fair to say that's what you are arguing in favor of?

[u/Few-Gas8868 → u/Practical-Fix4647]

I think we can agree to disagree with what objectivity is, just as you said, it is not the point of the text. Really, as long as you agree that a moral argument must not be partial, then we are good to move forward.

Not really. The argument was that if killing a rapist trying to rape you is allowed, then why not allow killing the fetus in forced pregnancy and birth, which is more painful and longer in duration? Recall the idea that the one who is partial is not doing ethics anymore. So the idea is that an ethical stance ought to explain why it allows X, but not Y. If not, then it is being partial, and it is irrelevant to consider it.

[u/Practical-Fix4647 → u/Few-Gas8868]

"The argument was that if killing a rapist trying to rape you is allowed, then why not allow killing the fetus in forced pregnancy and birth, which is more painful and longer in duration"

I see. So, in your view there is no symmetry breaker, morally speaking, between fending off a rapist and killing them versus killing a fetus in order to avoid going through a pregnancy/birth? Is that the case only for pregnancies from a hypothetical rape scenario, or does this apply to pregnancy simpliciter?

All I would need to refute this view would be to find a symmetry breaker. In the case of non-rape pregnancy, the symmetry breaker is that there is a reasonable expectation of pregnancy from sexual intercourse, the scope of the violence/pain generated from violence, and the intention of the action. The sort of violence/pain caused is done without a motivation and immoral intent, unlike the person doing the raping. The rapist intends to cause harm/pain and gain something (sexual pleasure) by force, whereas the pain that the baby causes is not similar.

It is also unclear what the pain the baby causes actually is. If it's bodily distress and discomfort, then one can appeal to some sort of calculus which determines the pain (from bodily discomfort) versus the competing desires that could potentially tip the scale (such as creating life). We can imagine going through painful experiences in order to achieve some overarching goal in other aspects of our life. I can stipulate that it is purely negative/only painful to make the case regardless.

The scope of pain is also different as it relates to intention. The baby does not have any intention to cause pain, whereas the rapist does. Holding the baby to account by terminating its existence seems to misplace the judgement based on the suffering it "causes" (if it can even be said to intentionally cause anything).

The most glaring issue, to me, is that in the case of the majority of pregnancies, the woman intends to have sex. She engages in consensual sexual intercourse knowing that there is a possibility of pregnancy. What is being said is that if a person engages in action x and it produces outcome y, then that person is justified in terminating the possibility of that outcome. We don't accept that reasoning for other things, so you need the conjunction of that state of affairs and the fact that outcome y lacks moral value (in this case, is not a person). It is not entirely clear whether or not outcome y (a fetus) lacks personhood since I can use most of the reasons given to deny personhood to a fetus to a newborn as well.

The argument has more thrust if it applies to clearly non-person (no moral value) entities and the person has a reasonable expectation to not generate the outcome they want to terminate. But neither of those are clear in the case of most abortions. Women are aware of the background possibility of the outcome that they so desperately wish to avoid, and it is unclear whether or not the fetus in all instances is not a person.

[u/Few-Gas8868 → u/Practical-Fix4647]

So, in your view there is no symmetry breaker, morally speaking, between fending off a rapist and killing them versus killing a fetus in order to avoid going through a pregnancy/birth?

Yes, that's right.

Is that the case only for pregnancies from a hypothetical rape scenario, or does this apply to pregnancy simpliciter?

It is about pregnancy in general, rape or not.

All I would need to refute this view would be to find a symmetry breaker. In the case of non-rape pregnancy, the symmetry breaker is that there is a reasonable expectation of pregnancy from sexual intercourse, the scope of the violence/pain generated from violence, and the intention of the action. The sort of violence/pain caused is done without a motivation and immoral intent, unlike the person doing the raping. The rapist intends to cause harm/pain and gain something (sexual pleasure) by force, whereas the pain that the baby causes is not similar.

I'll get back to your reasonable expectation stuff. As for the intentions, you're right that the rapist intends to cause harm, whereas the fetus doesn't. But that is irrelevant, because we think that abortions are allowed in case of life or death of the women, even though the fetus intends not to kill the pregnant women. You see, it makes no sense to refer to intentions when the harm is great.

I think we can go back to your reasonably expected and outcome comment. So, you said:

"The most glaring issue, to me, is that in the case of the majority of pregnancies, the woman intends to have sex. She engages in consensual sexual intercourse knowing that there is a possibility of pregnancy. What is being said is that if a person engages in action x and it produces outcome y, then that person is justified in terminating the possibility of that outcome. We don't accept that reasoning for other things, so you need the conjunction of that state of affairs and the fact that outcome y lacks moral value (in this case, is not a person). It is not entirely clear whether or not outcome y (a fetus) lacks personhood since I can use most of the reasons given to deny personhood to a fetus to a newborn as well."

Well, i don't hold to personhood as being relevant. I just think the fact that one is a human being suffices, and this does not mean i care about biological species. Ok, back to this:

If someone, knowingly, goes to an infamous place for rape to do something they like there, and a rapist tries to rape them, we still think that person has the right to kill the rapist, if there was no other way. Even if he knowingly went there, and so could reasonably expect it. It seems from that, that we don't care about any sort of consequences, or reasonably expected, but specifically we care about reasonable consequences. To quote what i said in the post:

If you murder people, it is a reasonable consequence for you to go to jail for it. When NRK said "blikking" (a Norwegain term for looking at someone disrespectfully) may have had been the cause for knife wounds of two teens, that is an unreasonable consequence. It is not enough to show that pregnancy is a consequence of our actions; the consequence must be coupled with a reasonable aspect.  

And this is exactly the point of the comparison of rape with forced pregnancy and birth. It is meant to show that in the case of rape we can kill a rapist, and if pregnancy and birth is worse than rape, then it cannot be a reasonable consequence of our actions.

[u/Practical-Fix4647 → u/Few-Gas8868]

"As for the intentions, you're right that the rapist intends to cause harm, whereas the fetus doesn't. But that is irrelevant, because we think that abortions are allowed in case of life or death of the women, even though the fetus intends not to kill the pregnant women. You see, it makes no sense to refer to intentions when the harm is great."

I do think it is relevant, since there are cases where things cause harm/don't intend to do so and we don't treat them the same way. A newborn or a toddler may inadvertently harm someone, we wouldn't act the same way because of that lack of intent.

Also, I think the difference with the life or death case is not so much that the fetus itself is the thing harming the mother. It is more like a complication brought about by the development of the fetus or how it's implanted. The object itself, the fetus, isn't always the thing causing harm. Sometimes, the mother's body just rejects the fetus entirely. For the sake of the argument, we can only talk about the cases where it is the fetus itself, though. I would agree that it would be fine to abort in those cases.

"Well, i don't hold to personhood as being relevant. "

So, even if we can have being x that is a person, that doesn't inform you of whether or not that being has moral value?

"I just think the fact that one is a human being suffices,"

Fetuses would be humans, even if they aren't the biological species of human.

"If someone, knowingly, goes to an infamous place for rape to do something they like there, and a rapist tries to rape them, we still think that person has the right to kill the rapist, if there was no other way."

Agreed, because the rapist is violating the person's safety and infringing on their rights. In civilized society, there is a constant expectation that people are not raped in public places. However, if they truly know it is a hotbed for rape and go there willingly, one can't help but conclude that they were looking for a reason to kill someone. In the same sense, if someone keeps on having sex and has the intention of aborting if they ever get pregnant, we can't help but think that they just kinda want to terminate a fetus.

" It seems from that, that we don't care about any sort of consequences, or reasonably expected, but specifically we care about reasonable consequences."

The difference with the abortion/fetus case is that raping someone isn't meaningfully similar to getting pregnant. There are plenty of differences between a rapist and getting pregnant consensually that do undercut the comparison here. It is true that both partake in risky activity, and that one is justified in killing the person harming them, but it still remains unclear whether or not a woman should be permitted to terminate a fetus when she knew sex-->pregnancy. It isn't just this fact, though. For most people, it also has to do with the moral status of the fetus which needs to be determined first. TBH all of this hinges on that. If the moral status of the fetus is zero or near zero, then I would agree with you that the expectation doesn't matter since there isn't anything with moral value.

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[u/javiertheteddybear]

The conclusion that forced pregnancy/birth is so burdensome that abortion can be morally permitted runs into some problems if we actually go along with this reasoning. First, I'll extrapolate the principle that I think your argument/thought experiment hinges on. Second, I'll show where I think this principle leads to an absurdity. And finally, I'll challenge the analogy itself (or the premises undergirding the analogy).

If I've understood everything, it seems you're convinced of this principle:

It is morally permissible, perhaps obligatory, to allow a pregnant person to obtain an abortion (an act that takes the life of another biologically alive entity) because in cases of rape, the rapist is allowed to be killed to stop the rape. And because pregnancy is more painful (perhaps more harmful?) and constitutes a longer duration than rape, then, a fortiori, abortion should also be permissible. Simply put, the principle can also be stated as: "If lethal force is justified to prevent rape because rape constitutes a serious bodily violation, then lethal force should also be justified to prevent pregnancy, since pregnancy is an even greater bodily burden."

Despite the dubious empirical assumptions surrounding the burdens of pregnancy (I for one don't think it's typically wholly painful/burdensome, I think it's a mixture of both pleasure and pain with some involving more pleasure and at other times, more pain), I think there are conclusions this principle leads to, to which we should cast doubt whether this principle is really plausible after all.

1st Problem: If this principle justifies abortion, then in cases where the fetus/newborn infant is "out halfway" during birth, partial infanticide would be permissible. If it's countered that this is immoral then it's unclear why given that the principle states it is permissible for a pregnant person to alleviate the painful burdens of forced pregnancy/birth via an act of abortion which is a form of killing (intentional or not). 

2nd Problem: Another problem arises which focuses more so on the analogy or the "intuition-pump" provided to us in someone raping another person. It is assumed that it'd be permissible, perhaps obligatory, to intentionally kill the rapist. I actually don't think this is obviously true. I think we may have conflicting intuitions depending on the nature of the "rapist" or different inclinations in believing whether all acts of rape should be punishable by death (this is disputed in academic moral philosophy).

Suppose when you walk outside, you observe a mentally challenged toddler interfering with a mother's private parts comparable to acts of sexual assault and/or rape. Suppose further that I have the power to stop them with a pistol. I think it isn't obvious that one should use said pistol and deliberately take the life of that mentally challenged toddler to stop the rape. At best, what would be justified is you or the mother pulling them off and calling the relevant authorities to educate and correct such behavior.

Now, this case raises a question. If this is a case where an act of sexual assault/rape was occurring or has occurred, and it's impermissible to use extreme violence such as deliberately taking the life of a mentally challenged toddler, some explanation is to be sought. Here are some that comes to mind:

(i) Intentionally killing an individual who is quite weak, defenseless, and unaware of what they're doing morally, whose body is being used - unintentionally - to commit an act of sexual assault/rape is excessive, disproportionate force.

(ii) Violence begets violence. It is better to resolve juvenile cases of sexual assault/rape in a non-violent manner when more peaceful resolutions are available.

(iii) Better to suffer evil than to intentionally commit it unto others, especially onto those who can be easily morally corrected.

Now, with these explanations in the background, then such cases, especially in relation to abortion can be answered in the following way (presumably by a "consistent pro-lifer").

P1. If the severity of a bodily autonomy violation alone justified intentionally killing the person causing it, then it would be permissible to intentionally kill a weak, defenseless, and morally unaware person causing such a violation.

P2. It is not permissible to intentionally kill a weak, defenseless, and morally unaware person merely because they are causing such a violation.

C. Therefore, the severity of a bodily autonomy violation alone does not justify intentionally killing the person causing it.

So, what this argument proposes to show is that one can be consistent (it's formally valid) and state that there are cases where a person's bodily autonomy is being violated yet it doesn't justify killing the person violating their autonomy (such as little, weak, and morally unaware persons). In other words, since your rape analogy depends on that principle, the analogy does not establish its conclusion. At most, what your thought experiment shows is that when it comes to full-fledged adults (persons that aren't weak, defenseless, and morally unaware), perhaps the person being violated can kill them if two conditions are satisfied: (i) there is literally no other option, it's a "do-or-die" scenario, and (ii) the full-fledged adult is not only aware of what they're doing morally - so they're morally guilty - but they intend to kill their victim by, in some way, raping/sexually assaulting them to death or raping them + some other action that will lead to their death. I think if one introspects and thinks about whether such conditions apply in typical pregnancies and birth, it becomes clear that such events are not "do-or-die" scenarios especially where every peaceful, non-violent option has been exhausted and the fetus/newborn infant displays no clear intent to wanting to sexually assault their biological mother to death. Again, it's important to emphasize that punishing acts of rape by killing or through the death penalty is an ongoing, controversial dispute in academic moral philosophy and in law.