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"Nazis didn't regard Jews as persons deserving rights either. They were correct by their own standards."
You inserted euthanasia into the conversation on abortion. An innocent person is murdered in either case.
Incorrect, I didn't insert euthanasia until much later in the conversation. The Nazis practiced euthanasia long before they started their systematic genocide of the Jews. It started as sterilization, then moved onto euthanasia. This was known as the T-4 Program. The person I was responding to implied euthanasia/genocide was the same as abortion (without actually using the word euthanasia). I was refuting that statement. Systematic euthanasia and forced abortion/sterilization by a fascist regime is entirely different than legalized abortion. With legalized abortion, the government doesn't decide who gets an abortion and it certainly doesn't force abortions on people. Abortion is simply there as an option and it ultimately up to the pregnant woman to decide. So I wasn't justifying abortion by saying that the government wasn't deciding, I was pointing out the difference between forced euthanasia/genocide by a government and a woman's choice to get a legal abortion.
And I suppose that those who are pro-life are therefore against freedom? It's been said a million times before, but the wants of the child are not taken into consideration.
The "wants" of something that in vast and growing majority of the cases doesn't have a brain trumping the owner of the rest of the body - interesting. What constitutes an independent human entity then, DNA? Well, that doesn't work, some human beings actually have multiple DNA - does that mean they're actually several people in one mind and body?
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
Self-ownership on the part of the mother has nothing to do with it. The question is whether or not the mother owns her child.
I wrote an essay about the rights of conjoined twins once: basically the body becomes like a "corporation" with separate mental entities holding "shares" in it with a ties being broken through IQ tests, with the more intelligent mental entities getting proportionally more votes. It gets complicated, but in the case of a pregnancy it's a no-brainier (pun intended, a "vast and growing majority" of the time). So, yes, the mother has custody rights to what will become a child once it achieves physical autonomy and attains the right to life. It doesn't get the full right of self-ownership until reaching a certain age (i.e. 18) or being emancipated by a jury, whichever comes first. Sorry, but the would-be mother is holding all the cards here.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
This seems like an unreasonable argument. Your basically saying that because something cannot survive on it's own, it has no right to life. Why? As I stated before, babies can't live on their own; certain siamese twins can't live on their own--does this mean they have no right to life, or have no ownership of their own bodies? I think not.
It has no "positive right" to be a parasite, just as I don't have the right to take your liver if I need it without your approval. If someone volunteers the technology to beam the baby out of the mother without killing it, then we can talk about "abortion" not being the same as "eviction", but for now it is. Babies (upon gaining physical autonomy) have the right to life because they can be protected from murder, which is what "right to life" really means in any context, fetii cannot be.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
Is there actually a point to this? Who is saying that if a woman has an abortion, that she is not choosing to have one?
The people who are anti-choice.
And "choice" doesn not imply "abortion" - it happens in nature all the time. Some animals instinctively know which herbs will trigger a miscarriage, and a human can use her mind to take a mega-dose of vitamin C, etc. A body will trigger a miscarriage in of itself, on a subconscious level, if it decides that having a baby isn't a good idea right about now, the human choice to end the pregnancy through a morning after pill or surgery is merely a rational extension of that.
Last edited by Alex Libman; 12-29-2008 at 01:45 AM..
The "wants" of something that in vast and growing majority of the cases doesn't have a brain - interesting.
Indeed. I have a want as a human being. I'm pleased that I wasn't aborted. That is my want and I can speak for myself now, because I know that is what I would've wanted then.
At the time of pregnancy, we do not know what fetus would have wanted, but I think it would be rather unhealthy to want to be aborted.
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Originally Posted by Alex Libman
I wrote an essay about the rights of conjoined twins once: basically the body becomes like a "corporation" with separate mental entities holding "shares" in it. It gets complicated, but in the case of a pregnancy it's a no-brainer (pun intended, a "vast and growing majority" of the time). Yes, the mother has custody rights to what will become a child once it achieves physical autonomy and attains the right to life. It doesn't get the full right of self-ownership until reaching a certain age (i.e. 18) or being emancipated by a jury, whichever comes first. Sorry, but the would-be mother is holding all the cards here.
Well since you wrote a paper, clearly you are the expert to which we should grant all authority. The point is that there is no logical necessity for equating physical viability with a right to life. You have no evidence and no argument that viability is the essential property of humankind, and the characteristic that grants the right of life.
I find it rather reasonable that human life is defined at conception. All the necessary genetic information is in place, and the zygote will naturally progress and develop as any other human being. Now, with human life comes the right to life. Humanity is not defined by having this or that organ fully developed.
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Originally Posted by Alex Libman
It has no "positive right" to be a parasite, just as I don't have the right to take your liver if I need it.
Well, considering that you've defined it as a parasite....what about infants, aren't they parasites? Here you've made a bad analogy. If you took my liver, I could not physically live. In most pregnancies, fetuses will not take the lives of their "host" but, through the host the fetus may be terminated. You can reduce this to purely pragmatic argument...the needs of the fetus are far more dire than that of the mother. If the needs of this "parasite" are not met, the fetus dies; if the needs of the mother are not met, then she's wasted 9 months...which is the bigger injustice?
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Originally Posted by Alex Libman
Babies (upon gaining physical autonomy) have the right to life because they can be protected from murder, fetii cannot be.
Say what? Anyone can protect a fetus from being terminated.
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Originally Posted by Alex Libman
The people who are anti-choice.
And "choice" doesn not imply "abortion" - it happens in nature all the time. Some animals instinctively know which herbs will trigger a miscarriage, and a human can use her mind to take a megadose of vitamin C, etc.
As another poster already mentioned: I'll avoid nature as my source of morality. After all, there are animals that cannibalize as well; if you can cite animals for support that abortion is natural (and therefore not immoral?), then why can't Jeffery Domer rest his authority on mouse cannibalism or preying mantises?
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Originally Posted by Alex Libman
A body will trigger a miscarriage in of itself, on a subconscous level, if it decides that having a baby isn't a good idea right about now, the human choice to end the pregnancy through a morning after pill or surgery is merely a rational extension of that.
That's a good one. I bet you have loads of solid empirical evidence that people are subconsciously aborting their babies! Well, if they are I'm sure that makes them morally justified!
Indeed. I have a want as a human being. I'm pleased that I wasn't aborted.
Thank your mother. She chose to bring you into this world.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
You have no evidence and no argument that viability is the essential property of humankind, and the characteristic that grants the right of life.
For a related argument, see my "Rational Basis for Human Rights vs Irrational Basis for Animal Rights" thread on this forum. You can't just make up rights because that makes you feel good, rights are a natural concept that can be observed and recognized on the basis of competitive advantage. And a society that has a prohibition on abortion would either collapse under the weight of its own contradictions or exist as a dead-end theocratic state where neighbors go to jail as accomplices to murder for not snitching on neighbors' sex lives. Everyone who isn't nailed down will pack up and leave for a less totalitarian place.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
I find it rather reasonable that human life is defined at conception.
No it isn't. What is different 1 minute before conception and 1 minute after conception? Some new DNA is created and a biological process begins, but that biological process is under the full control of the mother. No action of any consequence has taken place except for your irrational unique DNA fetish.
Does a person who combines and destroys a billion human DNA strands in a lab commit genocide of a billion human beings? Wow, maybe then some people would pay big money for the bragging rights - a new business idea is born.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
Well, considering that you've defined it as a parasite....what about infants, aren't they parasites?
Nope, infants exist as the result of their parents decision to bring them into this world. They are legal dependents of the parents, but are capable of existing without them. They can be given up for adoption if they aren't wanted, which permits the natural "right to life".
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
Here you've made a bad analogy. If you took my liver, I could not physically live.
Alright, my bad, I'll take a kidney then. Ain't I nice?
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
Say what? Anyone can protect a fetus from being terminated.
By keeping the mother restrained for 9 months? (Forgetting that stress increases the probability of a miscarriage.) Don't you think that violates her rights just a bit?
And you have to detect pregnancy early enough to accomplish it, pretty much before she does herself. Orwellian solutions are possible, given modern technology, but it's not a kind of society that can exist in the modern world without turning into something comparable to North Korea.
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
As another poster already mentioned: I'll avoid nature as my source of morality.
How convenient. Maybe you'd also like to ignore any ideas from the past 500 years as well? That just might give the abortion prohibition argument a fighting chance...
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Originally Posted by ainulinale
After all, there are animals that cannibalize as well [...]
It's not an "appeal to nature" as a source of morality, it is a discussion of what pregnancy is: a condition over which the would-be mother has a very high degree of control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ainulinale
That's a good one. I bet you have loads of solid empirical evidence that people are subconsciously aborting their babies! Well, if they are I'm sure that makes them morally justified!
Well, you need to read up on the biological processes that take place during pregnancy. There is natural selection taking place, and you're trying to exclude the mother from that process, as if her body is a baby factory for the society over which she has no rights.
That world-view is utterly incompatible with a free society, where parents, not the government, control the upbringing of children! Your ideas are left over from the theocratic / fascist ideology of the needs of the tribe / kingdom / nation / race outweighing the sovereignty of the individual, though the smart theocrats / fascists already learned to twist this same argument the other way based on the current economic needs (i.e. one-child policy). That's right, I see no moral difference between your prohibition of abortion and the forced abortions being performed in Communist China - both flow from the same ideology!
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Originally Posted by msconnie73
Abortions were illegal before so how were they punished then?
I'm not aware of any developed country where enforcement of abortion laws is taken seriously. Some countries, like in Latin America, keep the traditional laws on the books symbolically, just to keep the right-wingers from getting their panties in a wad, but a woman can get an abortion without much trouble. The same applies for much of the third world, though, needless to say, thousands of lives are lost to black market abortions which suffer quite a bit in quality control... Many women are willing to cross borders to have a safer legal abortion, and sometimes they stay in the less irrational country for good. Over time, a selection process takes place: smart people leave the theocratic dictatorship, and its economy collapses.
Last edited by Alex Libman; 12-29-2008 at 02:57 AM..
What am I judging? I don't think you have to experience anything to know that going through child birth and turning a baby over to social services isn't going to ruin anyone's life.
Where is the switch located that erases: the situation that caused the pregnancy, the morning sickness, the movement you feel inside you, the doctor visits for 9 months, the thoughts that you or the baby could die from complications during delivery, pushing 7 pounds (hopefully) through a very small opening, the emotions when a stranger comes and takes what you carried away because turning the baby over was the best thing to do? Oh, and all the people or situations that will remind you somehow about the experience for the rest of your life. Sorry, how can that not impact (ruin) that woman's life?
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