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Notes -
Is the slippery slope really a fallacy?
A story from Canada today that, by its very nature, maximizes heat. I will try to keep my own emotions about this story in check. Sitting at the intersection of gay rights, abortion rights, surrogacy rights, and ultimately the violence upon which all government force is founded, I bring you: Couple sues surrogate who refused to abort their baby over a minor birth defect
https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/world-news/couple-sues-surrogate-who-refused-to-abort-their-baby-over-a-minor-birth-defect/
Long story short, the baby had a minor heart defect
(the article doesn't specify what)and a cleft palate, and the adoptive men wish their now two year old child had been murdered and are suing the birth mother for failing to do so (there are also claims that she failed to keep them informed in a timely manner about these issues). Last I'll say of my own emotions on this is that this strikes me as outright demonic behavior and if I say anything more about my feelings I'm going to drift into fedposting so I'll stop here.The main point I can take away from this is that all of the Christian right that warned about various slippery slopes have been validated over, and over, and over again. The slippery slope is technically a fallacy, yes. But Christians repeatedly pointed out "There is no limiting principle here, and the arguments you nake to support degenerate behavior X are just as applicable to degenerate behaviors Y and Z and there is nothing except public sentiment (and not even that if a judge somewhere says otherwise) preventing the awful things we're talking about from becoming reality."
For those who lived through the culture wars over abortion, gay rights, and similar issues, have your feelings on the matter changed in anyway whatsoever over the last decade or two, and in which direction? And why, if you're able to articulate. For me at least, to quote the meme an old friend shared in our edgy groupchat the other day, "Upon further consideration I have decided to become more extreme in my religious beliefs".
I don't have anything to add specifically on the slippery slope question. Surrogacy arrangements are one of those things where yes, if you go into it with consenting, emotionally stable adults who all clearly agree on the terms, then it's hard to articulate a reason against it. But one problem is that emotionally stable adults are actually quite rare in my experience. I think some people overestimate their emotional stability and/or aren't truly prepared for the emotions that will come up throughout the process. I guess my point is, if you find a woman willing to carry an unrelated baby for you, she's either the most altruistic, selfless person on the planet, or something else is going on.
The other problem is the terms of the contract. Human beings are messy, biologically, and so are their relationships. I feel an instinctive revulsion at the idea of contracts that interfere in matters of marriage, fertility, sex, etc. And yet contracts are the instrument by which two parties agree on terms, they ensure terms are equitable, and they give the party remedies for violation of the contract. On a broader level, US law doesn't allow you to sell your kidney or other organs but somehow surrogacy doesn't have the same restrictions even though it's just as huge an issue of bodily and medical autonomy. In fact surrogacy should have even tighter restrictions because a new life is involved. But as I noted, real life is messy, and it's hard and uncomfortable to over-regulate delicate issues. So contracts don't cover key points or aren't written for every conceivable scenario, and people will get emotional and irrational about the outcomes if things haven't gone according to plan. I'm really surprised more cases like this don't make headlines.
But marriage itself is a binding legal contract!
Yes and no. There is almost no contract freedom, even prenups are heavily limited. Marriage is more akin to legal status such as citizenship - as opposed to commercial contract. Which is kind of a point. If the law was changed so that spouses could add clauses such as "baby with genetic defect has to be aborted by my wife or she pays for emotional damage" into marriage contract, OP would probably also call that as revulsive interference in marriage.
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