My Very Own Abortion Thread

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
361

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
orion wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
orion wrote:
Gentlemen, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are unable to lead an ethical discussion.

You argue outcome oriented, you have no fixed ethical pinciples from which to derive at logical conclusions and if you do you simply deny that the conclusion logically follows.

Hell, most of you are unable to distiguish between action and inaction and positive and negative rights.

If you are typical conservatives that means American conseratism is dead, for you argue the EXACT SAME WAY LIKE UTILITARIAN LIBERALS DO.

Next time you feel like accusing a “liberal” of “moral relatiism” simply embrace him as your intellectual twin.

To play devil’s advocate, a baby has POSITIVE rights because a woman CHOOSES to get pregant in most cases. Even taking precautions, she embracces the risk of getting pregnant because they are not foolproof.

Therefore (accepting the proposition that a baby is human from conception), she may not murder the human being she chose to create. (Just as parents must provide for the birthed children they CHOOSE to bring into this world but not the homeless man down the street).

And by the way, the people on these forums are really not the typical conservatives. Although, I am not a conservative myself, true conservatives’ arguments are much less half-baked. The ‘conservatives’ on thse forums are just ideologues who scream the loudest.

While I still feel that the fact that the mother created the situation is not entirely without merit, you cannot argue that the child has a positive right.

There are several problems with this:

a) The problems of positive rights in general. Something that cannot be a right everywhere, at all times, cannot be a right.

You cannot have an inherent right that depends on the ability of others to provide it.

b) Implicit contractual obligations are hard to argue for because the child did not exist to make a contract with.

She wanted A child, but maybe not exactly THIS child?

c) What if she did not choose it and was raped?

That would imply that the negative rights of a child are depending on how that child was conceived and that is not possible.

They are either absolute or not at all, it would fly in the face of a natural rights idea.

You chose to frame it in the context of ‘positive rights’. But that’s only one way of looking at it. The argument is that having chosen to engage in behavior that could create a life, the mother has a RESPONSIBILITY not to murder the life she brought into the world.

Rape is a differnt story. So is pregnancy that’s dangerous to the life and health of the mother. If you accept that proposition that abortion is murder in the first place, it’s not that eiter situation makes it ‘not murder’. It’s that they make it justified. [/quote]

Do you see that a child cannot chose how it is conceived?

Do you also see that, if you want to preserve the integrity of the natural rights idea, that you cannot declare a child to be second class because it was conceived by rape?

And how often do I need to post this?

362

[quote]orion wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
orion wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Your definition of natural right is not sufficient because it only focuses on interpersonal relationships.

A person however has the right to life, liberty and private property even if it is stranded on a desert island where there is no one to provide anything.

Therefore, a right that depends on the ability of others to provide it, or even the existence of someone to provide it, can never be a classic, i.e. natural right.
[/quote]

A person cannot have a natural right to results that cannot be guaranteed. But he (or she) can have a natural right to efforts and/or sacrifices of others on his (or her) behalf.

The degree of effort and/or sacrifice that is a natural right would vary depending on the relationship of the others to the person in question, as well as the age and condition of the person in question. I think this might be a fundamental difference between conservatism and libertarianism.

True enough. But a child does have a positive right to a mother’s care and a father’s support proportionate to the child’s needs and the parents’ means. I understand this does not logically follow from libertarianism. I reject libertarianism as a basic philosophy.

Maybe some things are that black and white, but he is using the wrong template to decide where to apply the black paint.

Maybe it is not necessary to put aside questions of positive and negative rights, but simply a matter of rejecting the libertarian framework.

Or maybe some of us think that limited government can have a legitimate role to play in the mitigation of problems.

Uh, true enough, although some of us would like to see the coercion thing used a lot more judiciously than has been the case.

363

[quote]orion wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
orion wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
orion wrote:
Gentlemen, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are unable to lead an ethical discussion.

You argue outcome oriented, you have no fixed ethical pinciples from which to derive at logical conclusions and if you do you simply deny that the conclusion logically follows.

Hell, most of you are unable to distiguish between action and inaction and positive and negative rights.

If you are typical conservatives that means American conseratism is dead, for you argue the EXACT SAME WAY LIKE UTILITARIAN LIBERALS DO.

Next time you feel like accusing a “liberal” of “moral relatiism” simply embrace him as your intellectual twin.

To play devil’s advocate, a baby has POSITIVE rights because a woman CHOOSES to get pregant in most cases. Even taking precautions, she embracces the risk of getting pregnant because they are not foolproof.

Therefore (accepting the proposition that a baby is human from conception), she may not murder the human being she chose to create. (Just as parents must provide for the birthed children they CHOOSE to bring into this world but not the homeless man down the street).

And by the way, the people on these forums are really not the typical conservatives. Although, I am not a conservative myself, true conservatives’ arguments are much less half-baked. The ‘conservatives’ on thse forums are just ideologues who scream the loudest.

While I still feel that the fact that the mother created the situation is not entirely without merit, you cannot argue that the child has a positive right.

There are several problems with this:

a) The problems of positive rights in general. Something that cannot be a right everywhere, at all times, cannot be a right.

You cannot have an inherent right that depends on the ability of others to provide it.

b) Implicit contractual obligations are hard to argue for because the child did not exist to make a contract with.

She wanted A child, but maybe not exactly THIS child?

c) What if she did not choose it and was raped?

That would imply that the negative rights of a child are depending on how that child was conceived and that is not possible.

They are either absolute or not at all, it would fly in the face of a natural rights idea.

You chose to frame it in the context of ‘positive rights’. But that’s only one way of looking at it. The argument is that having chosen to engage in behavior that could create a life, the mother has a RESPONSIBILITY not to murder the life she brought into the world.

Rape is a differnt story. So is pregnancy that’s dangerous to the life and health of the mother. If you accept that proposition that abortion is murder in the first place, it’s not that eiter situation makes it ‘not murder’. It’s that they make it justified.

Do you see that a child cannot chose how it is conceived?

Do you also see that, if you want to preserve the integrity of the natural rights idea, that you cannot declare a child to be second class because it was conceived by rape?

And how often do I need to post this?

[/quote]

Because you are wrong and your argument makes no sense. That’s why you keep having to repeat yourself. You are absolutely wrong that the mother’s CHOICE or lack therof in bringing the conception of child is unimportant. Also whether there is a risk to the life and health of the mother in carrying the child to term. It’s a BALANCING of rights and responsibilites. I already said a the unborn child’s right to life (if you accept that it has one) does not change depending on the circumstances of its conception. But the countervailing factors DO change.

Some say that even women who have been raped must bring a cild to term. I don’t agree. But no matter how you look at it, there is certainly a distinction between forcing a mother to bring her rapist’s child to term and a mother taking responsibility to maintain a life she chose to create by freely engaging in sexual intercourse.

The same with a pregancy that is dangerous to the mother. If the mother has a responsbility to shoulder the consequences of her actions and maintain a life she chose to create, that does not meet it applies in all circumstances. It doesn’t mean she should have to do so when it threatens her own life.

The law imposes duties on those who voluntarily adopt a course of action in other arenas all the time. Like tort law. No one has the duty to come to the aid of another in danger. But if they choose to rescue, they have to do so carefully. But in this arena too, careful and diligent execution of a voluntary rescue does not requiring placing one’s own life in danger.

364

Are you still on about this idiotic “positive” and “negative” rights bullshit? Did you manage to convince anybody that positive and negative rights make a fetal person less a human being? Did you find a way to make a person, not a person based on positive and negative rights? I mean, do you really believe that stupidity?

A person is a person and killing a person is still killing a person, despite the burden somebody may have because of another’s existence.

365

[quote]orion wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
orion wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
orion wrote:
This is mainly an argument aimed at conservatives and as far as I am aware it was first made by Rothbard in the “Ethics of Liberty”:

Let us assume, for discussions sake that an embryo was a human being with all inherent rights.

What is the nature of these rights? Are they positive, i.e. must they be provided by others, or negative, i.e. only need to be respected by others?

That is important distinction, because the same conservatives who would object to the idea that they are forced at gunpoint to provide for the needs of others, expect a mother to keep a child alive.

That child however only has the right to live, not to be kept alive at someone else´s expense.

Therefore, let us separate the child from the mother and see if it lives.

If it doesn´t, the child´s right to live was never violated, it could exercise that right if it had only the power to do so, alas it hasn´t. It basically is in the same position like a person dying of diseases or of old age.

So, the real question for a conservative is, how he can be against abortion and also against welfare when forcing a woman to keep a child alive she does not want basically is welfare?

Your supposition is invalid as a women need not do anything (no action) to keep an embryo alive other than keep herself alive. Welfare is action by one person or group to support others. Keeping an embryo alive requires no such action.

In fact, the only action is the action of terminating the embryo, which, by your scenario, would be infringing on the rights of the embryo to live.

Now once the baby was born it would require action on the mothers part to keep it alive. So this is where your scenario would apply. So at this point the mother could take no action; neither support nor hinder the baby’s ability to live, which would be totally in support of both parties rights.

HOWEVER, by law, if this occurred the mother would be in jail for child neglect.

So your scenario actually shows how the current law is hypocritical in terms of human rights by supporting the born baby over an unborn baby. (Remember your scenario premise was that the embryo had rights as an individual).

It is not so much whether she needs to act, but whether she needs to tolerate another person on her property.

You do not need to do anything to support a trespasser either, yet you want him gone.

Ah, except that by her own action she invited the trespasser on (in) her property. So that would be like telling someone to come in your house and then shooting them as a trespasser. Wouldn’t fly in the courts in California, maybe Texas!

I am not sure she necessarily invited him.

Having thought it through, as appealing as it is to me, it holds no water.

The reason is this:

If she invited the child, that could not be said about the child of a rapist.

So, if you base your argument on any kind of invitation, she could abort a rapist´s child, yet not any other child.

That would mean however that the rights of a child depend on how that child was conceived.

That does not go well with the natural law doctrine that states that men have inherent rights because they are men.

[/quote]

Yes, I see your point. I don’t agree with natural law so my position would not work under that paradigm.

366

[quote]Lorisco wrote:
I don’t agree with natural law so my position would not work under that paradigm.
[/quote]

What specifically do you not agree with concerning natural law?

367

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
I don’t agree with natural law so my position would not work under that paradigm.

What specifically do you not agree with concerning natural law?[/quote]

I think the definition of ‘human’ is a bit too liberal in that some people, as defined by their actions, are clearly not human (i.e. people who commit violent crimes against others). Having laws that protect criminal more than law abiding citizens is a problem.

368

[quote]orion wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
I haven’t read through the entire thread, so just ignore this if it has already been covered.

Orion, what would happen to your argument if modern technology developed to a point where an artificial womb was created to allow the fetus to develop in the mother’s absence?

Would you then be completely opposed to abortion?

I am not opposed to abortion, but for different reasons than Rothbard.

He just demonstrates that even IF embryos were human beings with all natural rights, forcing a woman to deliver it would still be unethical.

What your though experiment shows however is that their is a clear difference between killing an embryo or just stopping to carry it in your womb.

I actually already addressed that, saying that there are embryos (6 months and above) who survive the separation from the mother.

I think we would all agree that forcing a mother to deliver a child would be wrong if there are alternative means.

Most posters however cannot see beyond the fact that separating a women from the embryo leads to the embryos death in most cases but is obviously NOT THE SAME AS KILLING IT BECAUSE IT NOT ALWAYS DOES.

[/quote]

So Rothbard is saying that conservatives who are morally against abortion should not oppose a mother’s right to “remove the fetus from the womb”, they should only oppose her right to have its head crushed, or to have poison injected into its heart?

Does Rothbard feel that there is a responsibility to minimize any damage to the fetus as much as possible during the “removal” process?

369

[quote]orion wrote:

There are cases, especially in the last trimester, where it is the norm, that an embryo can survive outside the mother.

Ergo, removing the embryo from the womb does not equal killing.

[/quote]

A man of 90 years old can survive outside in winter weather for 30 minutes. If you force him outside because he is a nuissance and he dies soon after, is that not murder?

370

Do humans have a right to live (or any rights for that matter) that supercede the rights of other entities to do likewise? Are we obligated to preserve all potential human lives, and if so to the extent of our own detriment? This refers not only to supporting an unwanted child, but overpopulation, and medically intervening in the case of genetically unfit newborns who would otherwise die.

Humans don’t hold an esteemed position over the other lifeforms on this earth in any real sense except in their own reckoning. We bestow rights upon individual humans as a means to resolve or attempt to prevent disputes between members of the species as an extension of the spirit of law which can be summed up by the golden rule.

We do not afford these rights to the same extent to animals because we do not engage in dispute with them and they have no course for retaliation. The rights we give to animals are afforded due to moral beliefs.

Unborn infants fall into the same category as beings with rights that we do not enter into dispute with and that have no means of retaliation. We afford them rights out of the belief that human’s lose entitlement to control their body’s reproductive status beyond the stage of fertilization due to the belief that all potential human life should be protected due to the belief in it’s value.

If we see the spirit of law as a means to prevent dispute then it has no application concerning entities with which we do not enter into dispute with. There is no violation in terms of the golden rule in this sense. However, certain individuals take exception on the grounds of moral beliefs running outside of the boundaries of the spirit of law.

In addition to the spirit of law which is established to prevent behavior that disrupts the lifestyles of other members of the species, the law as it appears in writing is influenced by the prevalent moral beliefs at the time it is written with reverse intentions to the spirit of law.