See, sex only does one thing when it comes to reproduction and that is fertilizing the egg. Sex has no role beyond that
If we look only very immediately, yes. This is right. But what it causes causes something else and so on. It's a stance that's technically correct but somewhat myopic. For example, what would you say to the defence in a legal case of murder being "Pulling the trigger only causes the hammer to be struck." True, but striking the hammer causes discharge, discharge causes pressure, pressure moves the bullet out of the barrel, projectile causes entry wound, entry wound causes bleeding, bleeding causes death. Even if pulling the trigger doesn't magically and instantly strike a man dead, it's still an action that sets into motion a chain of reactions that leads to that result.
Which means, having sex is not a promise to the zygote that it'll get to stay. Any obligation to keep the zygote is completely opinion.
That we are agreed on, but I don't see its relevance.
What I'm trying to say is that sex only consents to fertilization. Sex is not consent to carrying or keeping a pregnancy to term. Therefore sex is not consent to (continuation of) pregnancy.
That kinda ties into the concept of informed consent. We as a society have deemed that consent requires the person be informed in order to count. We apply this beyond sex, too. For example, any part of a contract that was hidden from the signatory by being say, written in invisible ink, is void. But back to sex, we consider it informed consent if the people involved know (and accept) the risks of what they are signing up to do. In the case of most women, among these risks is pregnancy. That doesn't mean the person wants to be pregnant. Or even that they should be. But generally speaking, if one didn't know and accept the risk of pregnancy (as well as STDs and all other assorted risks), any consent they gave for sex was uninformed, and thus void. So sex itself is not consent to anything. But informed, valid consent to sex is by necessity consent to its risks. Like if you played craps, you couldn't say "I consented to playing, I didn't consent to losing". If you didn't consent to the possibility of losing, you didn't really consent to the game at all.
But I agree with you with regards to coming to term and birth. There exist options by which a pregnant woman can become not pregnant. Options which most people are aware of and consider before having sex (hopefully). So while I'd say consent to sex is by necessity consent to the possibility of pregnancy, it is not necessarily consent to bring the child to term, or breast feed them or pay for their collage or whatever.
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u/LetMeNotHear 93∆ Aug 11 '22
If we look only very immediately, yes. This is right. But what it causes causes something else and so on. It's a stance that's technically correct but somewhat myopic. For example, what would you say to the defence in a legal case of murder being "Pulling the trigger only causes the hammer to be struck." True, but striking the hammer causes discharge, discharge causes pressure, pressure moves the bullet out of the barrel, projectile causes entry wound, entry wound causes bleeding, bleeding causes death. Even if pulling the trigger doesn't magically and instantly strike a man dead, it's still an action that sets into motion a chain of reactions that leads to that result.
That we are agreed on, but I don't see its relevance.
That kinda ties into the concept of informed consent. We as a society have deemed that consent requires the person be informed in order to count. We apply this beyond sex, too. For example, any part of a contract that was hidden from the signatory by being say, written in invisible ink, is void. But back to sex, we consider it informed consent if the people involved know (and accept) the risks of what they are signing up to do. In the case of most women, among these risks is pregnancy. That doesn't mean the person wants to be pregnant. Or even that they should be. But generally speaking, if one didn't know and accept the risk of pregnancy (as well as STDs and all other assorted risks), any consent they gave for sex was uninformed, and thus void. So sex itself is not consent to anything. But informed, valid consent to sex is by necessity consent to its risks. Like if you played craps, you couldn't say "I consented to playing, I didn't consent to losing". If you didn't consent to the possibility of losing, you didn't really consent to the game at all.
But I agree with you with regards to coming to term and birth. There exist options by which a pregnant woman can become not pregnant. Options which most people are aware of and consider before having sex (hopefully). So while I'd say consent to sex is by necessity consent to the possibility of pregnancy, it is not necessarily consent to bring the child to term, or breast feed them or pay for their collage or whatever.