Abortion

[Thanz]

What you and Thanz find it difficult to accept is that being a person is not neccesarily a warranty that you will have the right for life.

Yes it is. If you are a person, you have a right to life. It is called basic human rights. In what circumstances is this not true?

I have been arguing under the assumption that the fetus is a person only. But that makes him have rights?.

Q

And I have been telling you all along that the assumption was that the fetus, as a person, has the same rights afforded other persons. You have avoided this at every turn because you don't believe the fetus to be a person. It is very simple: The assumption is that whatever the child is after birth, it is that at conception.

What other persons don't have basic human rights? Why would you deny these rights to persons in the womb? If human rights are not based on being human, what are they based on? If you want to deny rights to the person in the womb that are afforded to persons outside of the womb, you need to have a reason or explanation for it. You have not offered any.

 

[Yahzi]

Thanz

children possess a unique set of rights

This is why personhood is unimportant to your argument. You are not arguing that fetuses gain rights from their status as persons, but rather, from their status as children. One could assert that children were not persons and yet still enjoyed these unique rights. True, that would be a little strange, but it would be possible. What this shows us is that the personhood of the fetus is not central to your argument: its mere status as a person is insufficient to gain it those unique rights that its status as a child gains it.

In other words, making the fetus a person isn't enough; you also have to make it a child. Since it's possible to make it a child without making it a person, the person part just isn't crucial - even if I somehow succeeded in show that children weren't persons, you could still assert they had these unique rights (although that might seem weaker).

This why I said it is important to your argument, but not central.

Why do you insist on ignoring this question when it comes to the father?

I don't ignore it. I have said several times that it is unfair to men to compel them to support children they did not intend to have. However, this is hardly a basis for justifying unfair treatment of women. Actually, I do think that men should be allowed to refuse support of children by paying for an abortion, but you can see how this is not going to work in our current political climate. I also think that society as a whole should pay for the support of children, since we all benefit from them - and again I defer to the current political climate.

You have invented a class of moral agents (children), assigned them special rights, and asserted that their mere biological relationship grants them these rights. How is this not winning the argument by definition? Philosophers are still arguing over where ordinary rights come from - surely you understand that unique rights based on biological relationships have to be controversial.

I think having children ought to be a voluntary contractual obligation, just as I think heart transplants ought to be voluntary. I don't want to force someone to live if they don't want to, and I don't want to force someone to have children if they don't want to. The quality of life in both cases trumps the simplistic avoidance of death. In the case of abortion, it is quality of life for two people. I don't think that an unwilling parent is qualified to raise a proper citizen of our society. I'm not sure I want to let them try; I'm certain I don't want to force them to!

I think that all rights stem from the Golden Rule, and I think that the GR allows you to commit abortion to protect your rights. You have invented a unique set of rights based on dependency and physical action. The fact that you call them unique shows that you understand they do not devolve from the GR interacting with persons. I simply reject your unique rights, and I can do so without rejecting any rights ordinarily assigned to persons under the GR. By defending abortion, I am not attacking the rights of ordinary persons under the GR.

Parenthood is not a contract - it is a status based obligation, which will adhere to individuals regardless of their intentions.

Name any other relationship that this applies to. Alternatively, show how it devolves from the GR.

I might agree that children have unique rights, but surely you must see that the GR is insufficient to protect their right to life as a fetus. Something more than the GR is required; hence your "unique" rights. Now the question is, what are those rights based on? I can explain why the GR is the appropriate and necessary basis for interactions between persons (because it is a biological consequent of theory of mind + social existance); can you explain how or why these special rights for children are necessary to the health of the individual or society?

If you can't demonstrate a compelling interest for the State to trump my rights, then you can't trump my rights. Merely enforcing a moral obligation is not, btw, considered a compelling interest. One has to show harm or danger to individuals or the state, not merely failure to perform on the part of the individual. This is what is meant by that oft-repeated phrase, "you cannot legislate morality."

So even if we granted these fetuses rights, we would have to show how the State has a right to get involved. But that's a separate topic - I only brought all this up to show why we endorse the GR. The point is, why should we grant your unique childhood rights the same status we have granted the GR?

This is another way of saying that I think sex does not obligate childbirth.


Q-source

Are you sure that persons have inherent human rights?
What about War?, what about Siameses and brain-dead people?

Yes. Self-defense. Community property. Not persons.


Akots

Do you know why Jewish people were forbidden to eat the meat of certain animals? I don't know for sure either, but I'd be willing to bet it had something to do with a lack of proper refridgeration at the time...

Do you know why Jewish people are forbidden to wear garments of mixed cloth? I don't know for sure either, but I'd be willing to bet it had something to do with commerce, trade protection, and tariffs at the time...

Do you know why Jewish people were ordered to kill "everything that breathes?" I don't know for sure either, but...

What was the point of this idiotic excersize again? To demonstrate how creative we could be in interpreting ancient texts and making up answers we liked?

Therefore, it is valid to wonder if we can morally kill a fetus, if it is a person

Incorrect. Contrast this to Thanz's comment:

I don't have to expand the rights of children to adults to make them coherent

I leave it to Thanz to explain to you why your comment is invalid.

 

[Thanz]

Yahzi -

This has been quite the debate. After reading your last post I realize that I may have wandered too far from my original point in my attempts to show you that children have a right to their parents property. That they have this right is not in dispute - we see it on a daily basis. But my argument that personhood is the central question does not rest on this. Rather, it was simply a counter-argument to your posts about rights of property.

Let me see if I can state my position in clear terms. If the fetus is a "person", it therefore has certain human rights, among them the right to life. I am sure that you will agree that the right to life is justified by the GR.

I say that in this situation, we must undertake an analysis of the rights of the two individuals involved (the mother and the child). In a normal healthy pregnancy, I say that the right to life of the fetus outweighs the right to privacy (or property) of the mother.

You say, there is no other situation that allows another person access to my property for 9 months. You cite examples like immigration laws.

I say, so what? Your examples all involve the independant actions of others, which is not present in pregnancy. The fetus has no independant actions. It simply exists. Further, I say, the fetus/baby will have a claim against the property of the parents for the next 18 years, so it is not exactly unheard of that the parents property can be seized by the child.

Note that the "special rights" is really just a counter-argument, not my main premise. My main premise remains that the right to life of the fetus trumps the other rights in a normal pregnancy.

The whole point of going down the special rights road was a long winded way of saying this: If you are not justified in killing the baby after birth to protect your property rights, you are not justified in killing the same person before birth to protect those rights.

Note that none of this is dependant on the intentions of the parents at any point. They are irrelevant, and you have not made any arguments that convince me otherwise.

 

[Q-Source]

Yes. Self-defense. Community property. Not persons.

All your answers contradict inherent human rights. Don't they?

 

[synaesthesia]

You say, there is no other situation that allows another person access to my property for 9 months.

I deny that there is such a situation. What makes a person a *self* is the mind. In the first two trimesters of pregnancy there is simply not the neuronal organization to constitute anything like a self.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of killing a baby hours before it is born because the state of internal organization is not totally clear at this point. The moral status of these transitional issues will have to be predicated upon further understanding of how the mind works. Nevertheless I have a very hard time taking seriously the idea that legs, arms, developing eyes and brain buds constitute of a value commensurate with an adult human being.

 

[Akots]

I agree with that, but I think that we will never agree on who should decide where that thin line lies and why.

Rules are not im place to force peope lt oagree; they are a compromise, allowing people to tolerate and coexist. Legal laws are not here to make us happy, and i'l agee that Eith reway, Laws regarding Abortion will have to be loose enough to allow as much freedom as can safely be granted, just as there are gun laws to safely govern respectful gun owners.

Technically speaking, it is a parasite.

Then the human race is a race of parasites. This i can accept, but to say a fetus IS and an adult human is NOT is rather hard for me to swallow.

All men waiting to be executed in Texas are persons. So what???

You finished that sentence with my words, right? So what.

They have been judged by a court of law as dangerous. Their execution is as morally acceptable as an abortion that saves the mothers life. I find this comparison extremely ill concieved.

No and no. What you and Thanz find it difficult to accept is that being a person is not neccesarily a warranty that you will have the right for life.

The right to live? There's no such thing. You cannot argue with a meteor, a bulet, or a swarm of pirhanna. However, a human being does have a right not to be killed unnessecarily; this is enforcable.

I have been arguing under the assumption that the fetus is a person only. But that makes him have rights?.
Q

A human being has rights untill he uses them to infringe on the rights of another. In which case, a conflict comes into existance. You are saying this conflict can be ended through thedeath of one of the parties involved. I say that it is a resolution of absolute, last resort.

I will agree that I don't know what would warrant such a condition; however, to say that a resolution of absolute last resort can be invokeked because your personal luxury is in jeapordy is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard.

Apaprently, your line is not so thin...

 

[Q-Source]

Yes it is. If you are a person, you have a right to life. It is called basic human rights. In what circumstances is this not true?

It has been mentioned before, just some posts above.

And I have been telling you all along that the assumption was that the fetus, as a person, has the same rights afforded other persons.

I thought that it was a moot point, not an assumption

You have avoided this at every turn because you don't believe the fetus to be a person. It is very simple: The assumption is that whatever the child is after birth, it is that at conception.

and I have given the reasons why I consider that even it the fetus is a person, his right to life cannot trump the mother's right to privacy. The mother has justified reasons to kill the son if he infringes her rights (there are physical, emotional and economical reasons).

In a normal pregnancy, the mother has no option other than killing the baby if he is infringing her rights.
Outside the womb, society provides options to solve the problem and she is forced to face the consequences of her actions (if she kills the baby for example). In both situations, the baby is a person, but society justifies killing in self-defense.


Q

 

[Akots]

I deny that there is such a situation. What makes a person a *self* is the mind. In the first two trimesters of pregnancy there is simply not the neuronal organization to constitute anything like a self.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of killing a baby hours before it is born because the state of internal organization is not totally clear at this point. The moral status of these transitional issues will have to be predicated upon further understanding of how the mind works. Nevertheless I have a very hard time taking seriously the idea that legs, arms, developing eyes and brain buds constitute of a value commensurate with an adult human being.

This is an interesting point to consider; the criteria for being "A Person." It also reminds me of some of the inconvenient issues Q Source and Yahzi spout, that I so dislike (Sorry for being so stubborn, you guys ). So far we have:

1) No possible criteria can be applied
2) Infant has undergone birth process
3) Infant has achieved a certain age, or level of physical maturity
4) Infant has achieved a certain level of neural or tactile maturity
5) Fetus has been formed
6) Egg has been inseminated

What is it we are trying to prevent? The destruction fo an individual with thoguhts and experiences? The destruction of a human being? The destruction of a viable life form? Item five seems to be the most common milestone.

I'd posit that a mature, adult human being, with psychological experiences, concious thoughts and tactile experiences is a quantum leap beyond anything a fetus could be. If this is the only criteria, maturity, then we must also assume that an inseminated egg is just as much, if not more so, a quantum leap behind a fetus in terms of development and complexity. Where do we draw the line?

If we're interested in saving a lifeform, an abortion is immoral. If we argue that a child would grow up to live in poverty, would this be better than no life at all? We can frown upon suicides, who take the "easy way out" of their troubles, and yet we would be willing to cause preventative and unconsulted suicide on behalf of the organism.

What are we morally obligated to protect here? A mind? Abody? The Life? A conciousness? A religiously termed "soul?" I've never seen abortion as a children's right, specificaly; it contradicts a basic human right.

Is this part of the argument, or is it the basis of the argument itself?

 

[Akots]

It has been mentioned before, just some posts above.



I thought that it was a moot point, not an assumption



and I have given the reasons why I consider that even it the fetus is a person, his right to life cannot trump the mother's right to privacy. The mother has justified reasons to kill the son if he infringes her rights (there are physical, emotional and economical reasons).

In a normal pregnancy, the mother has no option other than killing the baby if he is infringing her rights.
Outside the womb, society provides options to solve the problem and she is forced to face the consequences of her actions (if she kills the baby for example). In both situations, the baby is a person, but society justifies killing in self-defense.


Q

Q, under what circumstances is it justified to kill a baby? If a baby is as much a person as an adult, do those circumstances apply as well to any human being?

What are the conditions that you claim "trump" the offspring's human rights? I just want to get this all straightened out before I continue banging my head against the wall.

 

[Q-Source]

Q, under what circumstances is it justified to kill a baby? If a baby is as much a person as an adult, do those circumstances apply as well to any human being?

Haven't you read the whole thread?
You asked me the same exact question some pages ago and I responded.
I don't have time now, maybe tomorrow I repost again the answer.

Q

 

[Akots]

Feel free to post a link to the post including the most definitive answer.

 

[Q-Source]

Feel free to post a link to the post including the most definitive answer.

page 6, 03-11-2003 02:22 PM.

I tried but I couldn't post it as a link.

 

[Peter Soderqvist]

If you read this thread carefully, you should understand that I am arguing that if the fetus is a person, then that by itself is enough to grant it rights, including the right to life. The fact that the person will necessarily also be a child means that the set of rights it possesses includes a claim on the property of the parents for the essentials of life.




I hope you are being sarcastic here. Do I really need to explain a bias in favour of persons over cancer?

Do you really disagree that persons have rights? and that once the fetus is considered a person, it therefore also has rights? If the fetus is not considered a person, then it does not have rights. How hard is this to understand? It seems that your arguments are either premised on the idea that the fetus is NOT a person, or are better directed to the question of whether the fetus is, in fact, a person, and at what stage it obtains that status.

Soderqvist1: The fetus is not a person and for the same reason it has no rights!
Where the borderline is between fetus-hood, and personhood is fuzzy! A parallel can be drawn to cell division, namely, no one can point out the exact moment in time, when one cell splits in two, but after a while, it is a quite easy task to say; now they are two there! Analogously, the fetus acquires personhood somewhere along the 9-month span, but not before the week eighteenth, at least here in Sweden according to our laws, but after a while, it is undeniable that, that it is a person there!