My Very Own Abortion Thread

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

[quote]pat wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 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?

I find it funny that generally people are against murder, but to kill what is potentially a human life is okay. I always ask the same question. What did the child do to deserve to die? It is natural for men and women to want and have sex, but who suffers the repercussions of an unwanted pregnancy? The child is killed and the parties that enjoyed the baby making go about their lives usually no worse off. How is that fair? I think it send a band message to the people of the world especially our youth that says you are not responsible for your actions.

It is also funny how people talk about war being unjust, how taking someones life other then self defense is wrong, but abortion is okay. That is strange logic to me.

Read the argument again.

If an embryo is a human being, killing it is wrong.

We are not arguing about killing it, but about removing its life support system.

A right to live is respected by others by not killing you, but it does not mean that they are bound to feed you.

The embryo has a right to live, not to a cushy environment that is provided by others at gunpoint.

So, this completely consistent with an anti-aggressive war stance.

I disagree removing a child/embryo from its life support system is killing it. They are the same thing.

When a pregnant woman is killed is the murderer charge will one homicide or double homicide?

What cushy environment…the womb?

That is not consistent with the anti-war stance at all. All you are saying is basically you are to lazy to take care of a life you created (not you specifically, but the mother) and will no longer provide for a person that can not provide for itself leaving it with only the option to die.

Rothbard´s question is whether you have the right to force me to care for my child, in or out of the womb and if so, how is that distinguishable from welfare.

Where and why do you draw the line.

It is an interesting question really, especially for conservatives ,because it forces them to think about inconsistencies in their ethical system and whether they accept them or not.

You draw the line at a person’s ability to provide for them selves. If a person gets blown apart in a war then ya I think we the people should provide for them. If a person lives on the street because they are heroin addicts then no at that point the person should be taken care of via charity or let to die. It has to do with person choice and responsibility in each scenario a person made a choice and they have to live with the consequences, but one of them made a sacrifice for the rest of us and the other cares only for himself. A baby can not fend for itself and was never asked to be created, but was created anyway. The mother and father have a moral obligation to raise and provide for said child until they are old enough to do it themselves.

By this logic, liberal thinking folk have no right to life since they make themselves willingly dependent on others for their own survival.
[/quote]

That’s fine with me.

142

[quote]orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
Holy shit this is one of the most retarded threads I have ever read.

You create a life, but don’t have to care for it?? Fucking wild animals take care of their young until they can take care of themselves. Can a baby fend for itself? No for God sake a baby relies on its mother for the most basic of necessities like food. It is a sad day when people honestly believe you can just wash your hands of your responsibilities and there be no consequences. Yes you can force a mother to take care of her children because…wait for it…She FUCKING MADE THEM! If a mother doesn’t take care of them social services takes them away and they take care of them until they can fend for themselves.

Some of you people need to put down the BS you read and think for yourselves.

You still do not get the distinction that Rothbard makes between the moral thing to do and what you can force other people to do.

The question is not whether child neglect is immoral or not, I think we all know the answer, the question is can you force someone else to provide for a child, especially if it is still in the womb.
[/quote]

Okay let me answer the question for you. YES!!! While a child is in the womb the mother has an obligation to care for the child. No if ands or buts about it.

I also do my own thinking so what Rothbard says means little to nothing. It sounds to me like the guy was a jack ass that cared about no one and nothing.

No I know Rothbard probably fathered 15 kids and all the women kept them so he had to work 3 jobs to pay child support. No wonder he’s bitter.

143

[quote]pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
orion wrote:
Cortes wrote:
orion wrote:
Cortes wrote:
orion wrote:

The embryo is cleanly separated from his Mother. It is not killed in any way. If it lives, it lives.

Umm, in what philosophical sphere is the child ever “cleanly separated from his Mother?”

So far as I know, it is sucked out limb by limb with a vaccuum hose.

Anyway your silly argument is still the same as arguing for infanticide. If the child is a human in the womb then nothing changes upon exit from the womb. So the mother can neither neglect it here nor there.

That is not even an argument.

Or if there actually is one, you are basically pro welfare and cannot really protest when your government takes your money to feed starving children in Africa.

Because that is the exact same situation you put that woman in.

See my edit. Ponder, too, the conservative stance on personal responsibility, and its bearings upon your “welfare” line of thinking.

Also, do you really believe what you are arguing, or you just like to have fun riling up the conservatives here?

I just bring up an inconsistency in their world view, if they believe an embryo to be a human being with all the rights of a human being.

What inconsistency? Saying that abortion is the taking of a human life and taking a human life is wrong? If that inconsistent, then I don’t know what consistency is…Is it “Murder is wrong unless that persons life is a problem for you then it’s ok?”

Because, once again, no live is taken, it is no longer supported, that is all.

If I watch an old man die I do not kill him.

If I stab him in the heart before he is gone I do.

Big difference.

If you are holding his breathing tube he lives, if you let go, he dies.

This little positive/negative rights things is still incredible irrelevant to the issue. Besides, abortion is an action, not an inaction. It is willful and deliberate and requires effort on the part of the mother to get it done So how is abortion an inaction?

The issue of abortions is whether or not the pre-born baby is a human being or some anonymous irrelevant tissue. If it is the prior, it is murder, if it is the latter, it is no big whoop.
[/quote]

Because the action of the mother is comparable to putting a dying man into another bed without live support.

That does not kill him.

She takes no action to kill the embryo, if it lives or not depends solely on the embryo.

In some cases that means that the embryo lives.

I do not see that conservatives do not also see the bright side because that obviously also means that late term abortions are out of the question.

144

[quote]pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Why would it be ok to kill the child in the womb, when you purposefully created a child?

The argument it that it would just be removed and not “killed”. If it lives, it lives.

So, killed. Like shooting someone and killing them. Unless they happen to live.

This is why I can’t stand Rothbard.

It’s because you don’t like being faced with logical arguments that you cannot refute.

What is the ethical basis for forcing a mother to carry a fetus to term? Is that not a positive right that is being provided to the embryo that must be enforced by government? What is the distinction between this positive right and any form of welfare, for example?

At the very least, Rothbard forces you to admit you have inconsistent beliefs.

This Rothbard guy sounds like an idiot. The ethical basis for carrying a child to term is because to do otherwise willfully is to commit murder.
There’s plenty of people in my life who make my life uncomfortable and I would be better off if they did not exist, but I can’t go and blow them away.

Not killing, stop caring for.

There is a difference.

Uh, if you stop taking care of yourself you will die. Not caring for your offspring for which you are responsible for if murder by neglect.
There is no possibility for inaction in these various scenarios. You make a choice and you your choice you have to power to terminate life or perpetuate it, there is not third element here. Choosing not to not to decide is still a choice-(Neil Peart)

Murder by neglect?

Is that what you are guilty of whenever a child in Africa dies that you might have fed?

Every time a homeless person freezes to death that you might have sheltered?

Only if you are responsible for them or the state in which they live.
Secondly, again, abortion is an action, not an inaction.

What the fuck does that have anything to do with anything? I like sushi, abortion is still murder despite that fact.[/quote]

see answer above

145

[quote]orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 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?

I find it funny that generally people are against murder, but to kill what is potentially a human life is okay. I always ask the same question. What did the child do to deserve to die? It is natural for men and women to want and have sex, but who suffers the repercussions of an unwanted pregnancy? The child is killed and the parties that enjoyed the baby making go about their lives usually no worse off. How is that fair? I think it send a band message to the people of the world especially our youth that says you are not responsible for your actions.

It is also funny how people talk about war being unjust, how taking someones life other then self defense is wrong, but abortion is okay. That is strange logic to me.

Read the argument again.

If an embryo is a human being, killing it is wrong.

We are not arguing about killing it, but about removing its life support system.

A right to live is respected by others by not killing you, but it does not mean that they are bound to feed you.

The embryo has a right to live, not to a cushy environment that is provided by others at gunpoint.

So, this completely consistent with an anti-aggressive war stance.

I disagree removing a child/embryo from its life support system is killing it. They are the same thing.

When a pregnant woman is killed is the murderer charge will one homicide or double homicide?

What cushy environment…the womb?

That is not consistent with the anti-war stance at all. All you are saying is basically you are to lazy to take care of a life you created (not you specifically, but the mother) and will no longer provide for a person that can not provide for itself leaving it with only the option to die.

Rothbard´s question is whether you have the right to force me to care for my child, in or out of the womb and if so, how is that distinguishable from welfare.

Where and why do you draw the line.

It is an interesting question really, especially for conservatives ,because it forces them to think about inconsistencies in their ethical system and whether they accept them or not.

You draw the line at a person’s ability to provide for them selves. If a person gets blown apart in a war then ya I think we the people should provide for them. If a person lives on the street because they are heroin addicts then no at that point the person should be taken care of via charity or let to die. It has to do with person choice and responsibility in each scenario a person made a choice and they have to live with the consequences, but one of them made a sacrifice for the rest of us and the other cares only for himself. A baby can not fend for itself and was never asked to be created, but was created anyway. The mother and father have a moral obligation to raise and provide for said child until they are old enough to do it themselves.

So your ethical guideline is that a helpless person that is helpless without any fault of his/her own has a positive right to live?

That right however corresponds to your duty to provide it then.

So, what about those kids in Africa?

Can I force you to care for them?
[/quote]

No because their parents should take care of them and if their parents can’t take care of them their governmnet should. Besides the governmnet and various charities send money to help the African kids which is fine with me. Trying to help is not a bad thing.

Besides they live in a different country across the ocean didn’t you say in another thread America should mind its own business? We can’t fight a war over seas, but we have to help everyone that needs it in the World?

146

[quote]pat wrote:

By this logic, liberal thinking folk have no right to life since they make themselves willingly dependent on others for their own survival.
[/quote]

And you despise it and yet follow the same logic when it comes to an embryo.

147

[quote]orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
tedro wrote:
So if I lock an adult in a cellar with no food or water, then I simply removed them from their life support system, right? No killing involved.

Uhhhh… that is aggression and is immoral. You would be violating that person’s rights by removing his liberty.

A more apt corollary would be that you are free to step over a homeless man starving in the street and not give him any of your money to keep him “alive”. You did not infringe on his right to life. If he lives he lives.

You would certainly see the ethical side of the argument if an armed police officer forced you at gun point to give him one of your dollars.

Except a grown homeless can fend for himself a baby cannot.

So do helpless people do have a positive right to be kept alive?

Clothed, fed, sheltered?

Do I have the right, a RIGHT, NO LESS, to hold a gun to your head and make you work until the last helpless person has been clothed, fed and sheltered?

Do helpless people have any other rights and where does that leave your rights?

Like I said the government should only use tax money (forced by gun scenario) to help those that NEED the help as long as they did not put themselves in that situation. A drug addict can either a) fend for themselves, B) get help via charity or c) go find a nice rock to crawl under and die, but a child that can’t take care of themselves should be provided for.

every child? Wherever it lives?

What about people who had a stroke or stepped on a land mine?

Wait, I know the last answer:

Those who planted the mines should pay for it, right?

And of course for the removal.

[/quote]

Every child under that particular government yes.

People have health care for strokes.

If you step on a land mine you are not going to live 9 times out of 10.

The ones that plants the mines usually pay with their lives in jail or in battle.

148

[quote]Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Funny enough, I find pro-choice ‘libertarians’ to be false. They make tortured arguements for how killing the unborn child is not an act of aggression.

And for the umptenth time, killing it would be.

No longer supporting it would not be killing.

Otherwise we´d have no argument.

And the single mother that left her infant in the cradle to starve to death, or to rot away with infected bed sores, she didn’t kill it? I guess it should’ve gotten up and provided for itself, too? Oh please, sometimes people try to be a little too clever. The end result of an abortion is to kill the unwanted child, period. This silly dismissal of guilt, because you didn’t rip the fetus apart, but just starved it to death is silly.

Sorry, but not everything is a clerk and customer relationship.

The question is whether you can make her care for her child, not if she is a POS if she lets her baby die of neglect.

It is perfectly ok if you took the baby and tried to find parents, but can you force her to care for it, in or out of the womb?

How can I take the baby? It’s on her property.[/quote]

That is also an interesting point.

If she only neglects the child and does it on her property, are you allowed to "break in " and take the child.

Don´t know.

You might have to break in and pay damages if you smash the door,

149

There you have it, Orion.

Conservatives do indeed support welfare.

150

Your kidding right…A women doesn’t just shove her hand up her cooter and pull the baby out. Hell the woman sometimes suffers because of the abortion procedure. It isn’t a Disney channel special.

151

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
Holy shit this is one of the most retarded threads I have ever read.

You create a life, but don’t have to care for it?? Fucking wild animals take care of their young until they can take care of themselves. Can a baby fend for itself? No for God sake a baby relies on its mother for the most basic of necessities like food. It is a sad day when people honestly believe you can just wash your hands of your responsibilities and there be no consequences. Yes you can force a mother to take care of her children because…wait for it…She FUCKING MADE THEM! If a mother doesn’t take care of them social services takes them away and they take care of them until they can fend for themselves.

Some of you people need to put down the BS you read and think for yourselves.

You still do not get the distinction that Rothbard makes between the moral thing to do and what you can force other people to do.

The question is not whether child neglect is immoral or not, I think we all know the answer, the question is can you force someone else to provide for a child, especially if it is still in the womb.

Okay let me answer the question for you. YES!!! While a child is in the womb the mother has an obligation to care for the child. No if ands or buts about it.

I also do my own thinking so what Rothbard says means little to nothing. It sounds to me like the guy was a jack ass that cared about no one and nothing.

No I know Rothbard probably fathered 15 kids and all the women kept them so he had to work 3 jobs to pay child support. No wonder he’s bitter. [/quote]

Cool, so what is the ethical principle that allows you to justify the threat of violence that is necessary to make the woman care for her child?

152

If you can’t tell the difference between state run welfare, and the natural resulting life produced through the act of procreation…

153

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

No because their parents should take care of them and if their parents can’t take care of them their governmnet should. Besides the governmnet and various charities send money to help the African kids which is fine with me. Trying to help is not a bad thing.

Besides they live in a different country across the ocean didn’t you say in another thread America should mind its own business? We can’t fight a war over seas, but we have to help everyone that needs it in the World?[/quote]

Wait, so you can force other people to care for helpless people but when you yourself might get forced to provide for helpless people that did not deserve the situation they are in you try to weasel out?

Oh no, if they have a RIGHT to live, you must provide it,

Because you know, we hold these truths to be self evident that ALL MEN are born with certain, inalienable rights…

154

[quote]orion wrote:
Don´t know.

You might have to break in and pay damages if you smash the door,

[/quote]

If I have to pay for damages, then I must’ve been in the wrong. So, I should be jailed. Or, she would’ve been justified in killing me as I attempted to rescue the infant. If this is Rothbard’s kind of world, I want none of it.

155

[quote]pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
orion wrote:
pat wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Why would it be ok to kill the child in the womb, when you purposefully created a child?

The argument it that it would just be removed and not “killed”. If it lives, it lives.

So, killed. Like shooting someone and killing them. Unless they happen to live.

This is why I can’t stand Rothbard.

It’s because you don’t like being faced with logical arguments that you cannot refute.

What is the ethical basis for forcing a mother to carry a fetus to term? Is that not a positive right that is being provided to the embryo that must be enforced by government? What is the distinction between this positive right and any form of welfare, for example?

At the very least, Rothbard forces you to admit you have inconsistent beliefs.

This Rothbard guy sounds like an idiot. The ethical basis for carrying a child to term is because to do otherwise willfully is to commit murder.
There’s plenty of people in my life who make my life uncomfortable and I would be better off if they did not exist, but I can’t go and blow them away.

Not killing, stop caring for.

There is a difference.

Uh, if you stop taking care of yourself you will die. Not caring for your offspring for which you are responsible for if murder by neglect.
There is no possibility for inaction in these various scenarios. You make a choice and you your choice you have to power to terminate life or perpetuate it, there is not third element here. Choosing not to not to decide is still a choice-(Neil Peart)

Murder by neglect?

Is that what you are guilty of whenever a child in Africa dies that you might have fed?

Every time a homeless person freezes to death that you might have sheltered?

Only if you are responsible for them or the state in which they live.
Secondly, again, abortion is an action, not an inaction.

What the fuck does that have anything to do with anything? I like sushi, abortion is still murder despite that fact.[/quote]

YOu brought up “murder by neglect”.

I am just exploring that concept.

156

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
What people are arguing though is she willfully entered into an agreement with the embryo/fetus upon conception, a contract if you will. Even though it is unwritten the impetus is still there.

Technically speaking the father also entered into a contract with this fetus.

By your argument a father who does not wish to pay child support should not have to, and the government has no right to force him to, simply because the mother chooses to keep the baby.

Breach of contracts usually carry ramifications.

I cannot agree with this because conception is not a necessary feature sexual intercourse. There can be no contract with a fetus because it does not exist prior to conception. In other words, a contract only exists when individuals willfully enter into it. It is a nonsensical argument to suggest that the fetus is a contractor.

In fact, we would consider a fetus the property which comes about because of a man’s and a woman’s decision to enter into a contract – that being a sexual relationship. In this regard, the two individuals who entered into it get to decide what to do with their property, the fetus.[/quote]

Oh so we are then are parents slaves.

until they release us from said slavedom.

oh but that’s right slavery is abolished in our nation. People cannot be propery, they are their own entity.

So again it becomes a new contract.

But let’s get back to this removing from the womb argument. In said removal you must mutilate a part of the person vtial to their survival at that stage of their life.

The placenta and ambilical cord is not the mothers it is part of the baby and damaging becomes an act of aggression therefore negating your positive and negative rights.

157

[quote]orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
Holy shit this is one of the most retarded threads I have ever read.

You create a life, but don’t have to care for it?? Fucking wild animals take care of their young until they can take care of themselves. Can a baby fend for itself? No for God sake a baby relies on its mother for the most basic of necessities like food. It is a sad day when people honestly believe you can just wash your hands of your responsibilities and there be no consequences. Yes you can force a mother to take care of her children because…wait for it…She FUCKING MADE THEM! If a mother doesn’t take care of them social services takes them away and they take care of them until they can fend for themselves.

Some of you people need to put down the BS you read and think for yourselves.

You still do not get the distinction that Rothbard makes between the moral thing to do and what you can force other people to do.

The question is not whether child neglect is immoral or not, I think we all know the answer, the question is can you force someone else to provide for a child, especially if it is still in the womb.

Okay let me answer the question for you. YES!!! While a child is in the womb the mother has an obligation to care for the child. No if ands or buts about it.

I also do my own thinking so what Rothbard says means little to nothing. It sounds to me like the guy was a jack ass that cared about no one and nothing.

No I know Rothbard probably fathered 15 kids and all the women kept them so he had to work 3 jobs to pay child support. No wonder he’s bitter.

Cool, so what is the ethical principle that allows you to justify the threat of violence that is necessary to make the woman care for her child?

[/quote]

ummm if she doesn’t care for the child it would be murder. Ethically she is obligated to do so because she took part in the creation of that life. By creating this life she has given up her rights to not care for a baby.

158

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
orion wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
tedro wrote:
So if I lock an adult in a cellar with no food or water, then I simply removed them from their life support system, right? No killing involved.

Uhhhh… that is aggression and is immoral. You would be violating that person’s rights by removing his liberty.

A more apt corollary would be that you are free to step over a homeless man starving in the street and not give him any of your money to keep him “alive”. You did not infringe on his right to life. If he lives he lives.

You would certainly see the ethical side of the argument if an armed police officer forced you at gun point to give him one of your dollars.

Except a grown homeless can fend for himself a baby cannot.

So do helpless people do have a positive right to be kept alive?

Clothed, fed, sheltered?

Do I have the right, a RIGHT, NO LESS, to hold a gun to your head and make you work until the last helpless person has been clothed, fed and sheltered?

Do helpless people have any other rights and where does that leave your rights?

Like I said the government should only use tax money (forced by gun scenario) to help those that NEED the help as long as they did not put themselves in that situation. A drug addict can either a) fend for themselves, B) get help via charity or c) go find a nice rock to crawl under and die, but a child that can’t take care of themselves should be provided for.

every child? Wherever it lives?

What about people who had a stroke or stepped on a land mine?

Wait, I know the last answer:

Those who planted the mines should pay for it, right?

And of course for the removal.

Every child under that particular government yes.

People have health care for strokes.

If you step on a land mine you are not going to live 9 times out of 10.

The ones that plants the mines usually pay with their lives in jail or in battle.

[/quote]

Why only under a particular government? What if they have no health care because they could not afford it?

Doesn´t that seem a little arbitrary do you?

Do women outside the US have the right to abort?

Does crossing an imaginary line also change the ethics of the situation for them?

And does an American bomber pilot have to pay for people in Laos that have no legs if he is not dead?

I mean, he put them into a situation they did not deserve. Should he not provide for them.

159

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

Because the action of the mother is comparable to putting a dying man into another bed without live support.

That does not kill him.

Your kidding right…A women doesn’t just shove her hand up her cooter and pull the baby out. Hell the woman sometimes suffers because of the abortion procedure. It isn’t a Disney channel special. [/quote]

I already conceded that ripping an embryo apart is unethical when an embryo is considered to be a human life.

160

[quote]Sloth wrote:
If you can’t tell the difference between state run welfare, and the natural resulting life produced through the act of procreation…[/quote]

I can, but I also know that a natural right must be absolute and universal.

Insofar, no one, not even a new born baby can have the right to be kept alive because very often that is simply not possible.

It always has the right not to be killed because that is always possible, under any circumstances.