A fetus cannot homestead it's right to self-ownership inside the womb of another (since you cannot homestead inside another's inalienable person)
Ownership of body is not "homesteaded" but aquired by virtue of one'd direct control over his body. Where the baby is located does not effect his ownership of body. (although to say a fetus has any ownership is ridicules, but thats for other reasons)
Ownership of body is not "homesteaded" but aquired by virtue of one's direct control over his body.
There are no rights which are not property rights. To acquire the right to self-ownership, one must be separate from the inalienable will of another. One must homestead his own body, and such can only transpire when one is not in the confines of another's person.
PS- It's ridiculous, not "ridicules." No offence, it's just a mistake that rather bothers me. A pet peeve, if you will. It's like when people use "your" instead of "you're," or "loose" instead of "lose." Just trying to help you out on that one.
Thank you for the correction, my spell checker isn't working and I don't fee like openning word ext. Fee free to further correct me, I appreciate it.
As for what you said, though all rights are property rights, this means the rights are a justification for exclusive control, not that they are aquired in a certain way. What I meant by saying body ownership is not aquired by homesteading is that it's not via an act of original appropriation. Your parents don't own you. Since this is so, the location of the body is irrelevant.
Gumdy is alluding to what I've been saying: it's a matter of fact; that is, fetuses don't have rights de facto. Not "well they might in this situation, or they might in another." No. Fetuses don't have rights BECAUSE they aren't individuals. When the umbilical cord is cut, and the fetus is a separate being outside of the mothers body, then it BECOMES an individual and THEREFORE has the right of self-ownership, even thought it STILL ISN'T a self-owner, but only a potential self-owner.
The reason I wanted people to read stuff and quote is so that you could not avoid being reminded that rights are for individual beings—in this case, of the human variety—by virtue of our nature. That is, our NEED for them. As Gumdy pointed out, we need them as a solution for justice in an environment of scarce resources.
None of this is relevant in any sense to a fetus. I don't know how many times I have to say it.
Hashem-- I was just agreeing with you. Did you read what I wrote? I said that fetuses can't homestead their property right of self-ownership in the womb, and therefore they have none. That's why they aren't individuals.
I agree with you, geeze. And I understand that fetuses (a) don't have a self-ownership right, (b) aren't self-owners, and (c) aren't individuals. Only point (b), on the other hand rationally applies to babies. I simply think this idea that they can't homestead their property rights (by virtue of not being a separate individual) is key to the question.
Oh lol why didn't you say so. You may be in complete agreeance with me at this point.
As to homesteading one's self post-birth, you have foresight into the correct answer. We gain property rights when we act to acquire them, in our person as in everything else.
Gumdy is alluding to what I've been saying: it's a matter of fact; that is, fetuses don't have rights de facto. Not "well they might in this situation, or they might in another." No. Fetuses don't have rights BECAUSE they aren't individuals. When the umbilical cord is cut, and the fetus is a separate being outside of the mothers body, then it BECOMES an individual and THEREFORE has the right of self-ownership, even thought it STILL ISN'T a self-owner, but only a potential self-owner. The reason I wanted people to read stuff and quote is so that you could not avoid being reminded that rights are for individual beings—in this case, of the human variety—by virtue of our nature. That is, our NEED for them. As Gumdy pointed out, we need them as a solution for justice in an environment of scarce resources. None of this is relevant in any sense to a fetus. I don't know how many times I have to say it.
How am I alluding to something I agreed and argued myself from the start?
I just pointed out one specific argument which was false. Otherwise, as you can see, I agree.
How aren't you?
allude: to refer casually or indirectly
You said: "by virtue of one'd direct control over his body"
I said: "it's a matter of fact; that is, fetuses don't have rights de facto"
What a weird random thing to bring up...
I wasn't replying to you. Anyway, we agree.
Haha, I thought "OK man, you win," would clue you in that I had largely lost the debate. >_>
Anyway, to my point. I was trying to help make your stance more cohesive, as just repeating the "individual" explanation doesn't explain what I am convinced is the deeper reasoning. Fetuses have neither self-ownership nor are self-owners. (Two different things). This is because they cannot homestead their property right to self-ownership, and cannot homestead further to become a complete self-owner. (This being due to the fact that they are in another's inalienable person). Now, that should make sense as to why they have no rights. With regards to newborns, they have a right to self-ownership but are not full self-owners, according to Rothbard. Keep in mind that all rights are property rights, and, as such, must be derived from homesteading. Now, a coherent explanation, in my view, is that the fetus is homesteading its right to self-ownership, by virtue of being separate from the inalienable will of the mother. (i.e., It becomes an individual with a right in itself). As it grows older and more independent, it can further homestead property and become a full self-owner, not restricted to the rules of its parents property, etc.
I'm simply proposing this theory that I came up with as a rational explanation behind why the separation constitutes when the newborn acquires its right to self-ownership. I think it could be an important point to you and Rothbard's point, which neither you nor he (to my knowledge) brought up. It's the reason why the parents only own the child "fee simple." Without this reasoning, as far as I know, the claim seems (yet isn't) unsubstantiated and arbitrary. i.e., That one potential self-owner has no right to self-ownership, while another has the right of self-ownership. With my new theory of the homesteading of birth, however, this makes perfect sense. If I hadn't thought of this, I would never have been able to be convinced of your chain of logic.
What do you think?
So Rothbard is against abortion. What if catholic landowners decide that no-one can't abort in their property? Is it anarcho-capitalism? If it's not, what it is then?
Oh, ofc we think that you can outlaw abortion on your own property. People do not have a "positive right" to aggress upon your property as landowner and abort. But they are free to do so on their own property or the property of those who consent, ALWAYS. People are always free from aggression, the essence of negative rights. As someone who is morally against abortion himself, I would support property owners voluntarily outlawing it on their property, actually.
Also, I'm going to assume you meant Rothbard is for legal abortion.
PS- I noticed you have an issue with Rothbardian legal structure theory. Let me explain why you shouldn't. All Rothbardian law says is that laws are universal. The law that you cannot murder is universal; no one can EVER change this, not even on their own property. No one can EVER enforce a law that says you can initiate force against others. In short, no on can make/enforce law which violates the Non-Aggression Axiom. We're not saying people can't determine the rules for their own legitimate property. Quite the contrary. But people NEVER have a right to initiate force, in any scenario. Period.
Yes, he is for legal abrotion, my mistake. English is not my first language. But what do you think about this quote from Rothbard:
The free bankers accept a kind of David Friedmanite anarchism, where there is no law, only people engaging in exchange and buying people out. If you have a group that wants to kill redheads, the redheads will have to buy them off if they value their hair. I think this is monstrous; that kind of anarchism would indeed be chaos. Just because there is a demand for something doesn't mean it should be fulfilled.
It seems that Rothbard was against 'polycentric' law, in which property owners can decide what laws they choose. Later Austrians (like Robert Murphy) are with you and say that they can choose, but Rothbard seems different.
I'm against polycentric law, in a certain sense, and I completely agree with Rothbard in that passage.
Property owners cannot legally choose to aggress against people on their lands, who have not violated their own property rights. Also, when property owners retaliate against aggression, it must be (as a maximum) proportionate to be legal. So, in a Rothbardian society, it would be illegal to shoot and murder someone who places one foot over your property boundary, presuming they were not trying to kill you.
In being against polycentric law, I simply mean that I believe in a universal Non-Aggression Axiom. For instance, that people are NEVER legally allowed to initiate force and choose to murder redheads. That's what I mean. That people are NEVER allowed to steal. That people are NEVER allowed to enslave.
^Make sure to see the fully edited version of my last reply. =)
Yes, I saw it. When you say that property owners are never LEGALLY ALLOWED to do un-Rothbardian things, what does that mean? That Rothbardians are going to call him and say 'Dude, that's not right according to our NAP-theory' or something else? Does it just mean that it's not 'legal', but they can still do it? I belive that anarcho-capitalism would lead to a society, where property owners decide their laws and only Rothbardian libertarians(10% maybe?) would use 100% version of his ethics in their property.
Violation of the Non-Aggression Axiom means that people legally can and probably should respond with retaliative force...of course, they do not have to and cannot be forced to respond in this fashion, for that would itself violate libertarian ethics. But, the idea is, if you murder redheads, you can be killed or jailed yourself by someone who retaliates, whether they be vigilantes or private police or whatever.
In the ideal world, all violations of the Non-Aggression Axiom would be enforced against as best as possible. But that's unrealistic. For instance, someone could murder and run away, and never be found again. But the Rothbardian idea is that (ideally) they should be found and brought to punishment for their crimes.
Yes, Libertarian society is all about pushing for the most enforcement against Aggression as possible.
I took the "redhead"-quote because it was only one where I have seen Rothbard commenting Friedman's version of ancap. But what if 80 % of property owners allow circumcision, ban abortion and start to jail people who break contracts? I can't think that it would be unrealistic consequence if current monopoly of law breaks up and power of decision moves to the property owners. I can't think Rothbards "generally accepted legal code" to become global standard and expect it to become only a minor set of laws in anarcho-capitalistic society.
And another question, would Rothbard be against a stateless society, where property owners can choose their laws by themselves? That quote seems to show so.
EDIT:
Hmm, so David Friedman's anarcho-capitalism is not libertarianism? ;) Well, this is one answer:
"This legal code would recognize sovereignty of the individual and the principle of non-aggression. However, in David D. Friedman's anarcho-capitalism, "the systems of law will be produced for profit on the open market",[39] which he believes would lead to a generally libertarian society if not an absolute one." So global stateless anarcho-capitalism doesnt mean global libertarian society, if libertarian society means pro-abortion, pro-drugs, anti-circumcision etc.
No, Friedman's a libertarian, I'm simply a Rothbardian. No big deal. Also, I'm an Anarcho-Capitalist too. I simply don't believe in "polycentric" law, e.g., one law which says it's OK to murder redheads.
And I'm afraid you're not getting the point. The point isn't to impose a rule that property owners should allow abortion on their lands...The point is that property owners can NEVER aggress against peaceful people who want to abort on their own lands or on the lands of others who consent. Hence my point. The point is that there can be no laws which violate the NAA. There cannot be a law which says it's OK for me to burn down grocery stores against the various owners' consents. That's my point. And, to be legal, all punishment AGAINST peoples' crimes must be proportionate, e.g., I cannot shoot you for poking me.
You have to understand what the universal Rothbardian Non-Aggression Axiom means, first. By the way, the reason you are not allowed to abort on someones' land who doesn't allow it is that that would be trespassing. You would be aggressing against them. And, according to Rothbardian Universal Law, this would be illegal. So, in summary: it would be universally illegal to trespass on someones' lands and abort there against their consent. Non-Aggression and negative rights are the universal laws in Rothbardian theory.
EDIT- Also, I should add that, as a traditionalist anarchist, I am morally opposed to drugs and abortion. But I'm not legally opposed to these things.
I think I understand the point. I just don't understand why Rothbard himself was so hostile towards polycentric law, and I mean when refers Friedmanite anarcho-capitalism as a 'chaos'.
I don't think he was being overly hostile: simply emphatic. For example, if I wanted to hire a hitman to kill you, there would be a very good argument that my demand is illegal and hence should not be fulfilled.** Even if a "law" hypothetically says it's OK. It would indeed be pretty chaotic to say that my demand can be legally fulfilled and you can be shot in your sleep by my hitman.
And I don't think he's saying that Friedman's whole conception is chaos, but rather that particular legal point of Friedman's. If that makes sense.
**Presuming you're not the one who initiated force by murdering someone, of course.
I think Rothbard was very clear.
The free bankers accept a kind of David Friedmanite anarchism, where there is no law, only people engaging in exchange and buying people out.
Many of Rothbards followers actually support polycentric law, because they say that property owners have right to choose 'wrong' law. But Rothbard was really hostile towards this in that quote. And I mean against the whole 'David Friedmanite anarchism', which means that property owners can choose their own laws.
*Fetuses have neither self-ownership nor are self-owners. (Two different things). This is because they cannot homestead their property right to self-ownership, and cannot homestead further to become a complete self-owner.
I can comment on more later, but I'm in a hurry at the moment. This reminded me of what I was meaning to point out in my previous comment that seems almost bare without it in hindsight:
They cannot homestead themselves, true. But not only because they have no right to, by virtue of not being self-owning indivuals. It is true especially because A) they can't act in the economic sense (rational, conscious, purppseful behavior, as strictly opposed to instinct or automatic reflex or reaction), and B) they don't have the nature which is the explanation for the property rights of acting individuals.
In short, the nature of fetuses is not compatible with the property rights for acting man.
You have a right to your body and its production, by which your child, of any age below adulthood, relies on you for survival. Does this mean that, because of your absolute right to your body and its products, that you could morally allow a two year old to starve to death.
My problem with Rand's and Rothbard's abortion arguments is that they ignore personal responsibility. Pregnancy is a matter of choice, people choose the act that causes them to become pregnant. That is an acceptance of the risk of pregnancy. Beyond that is the moral issue of another human being having the right to its own body. Just as the two year old cannot be killed, why should the unborn.
anenome,
thanks for sinthethyzing the point I've tryed to make a with my posts.
you are right: essentially, all boils down to this.
if we are to accept any law that prescribes the killing (or abandonment) of small children to be a crime, we are bound to apply the same principle to unborn children as well. period.
The only congruent stances are the radical "libertarianism" that does not consider a crime to let a child starve in a chamber or the traditional view that people are morally/ethically and legally responsible for the welfare of their ofspring up until the age they are able to do it by themselves.
*My problem with Rand's and Rothbard's abortion arguments is that they ignore personal responsibility. Outright lie. Rothbard is a champion of personal responsibility.
*Pregnancy is a matter of choice By far the most lunatic thing I've heard all day. (Natural) pregnancy is PURELY random. That's why people get pregnant on ACCIDENT, while others try for months or years and fail before RANDOMLY achieving pregnancy.
You have a right to your body and its production, by which your child, of any age below adulthood, relies on you for survival.
That's an interesting abuse of the word 'right,' it's almost like you really meant to say 'obligation.'
That aside, equating the reliance of a born child "of any age below adulthood" to that of an unborn child is obviously an uneven analogy.
My problem with Rand's and Rothbard's abortion arguments is that they ignore personal responsibility. Pregnancy is a matter of choice, people choose the act that causes them to become pregnant. That is an acceptance of the risk of pregnancy.
One would hope that you just caught on to your logical inconsistency, but I doubt it. Pregnancy is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of risk. Despite choosing to have unprotected sex and using no form of birth control, a woman may still never get pregnant. Furthermore, despite the willingness to become pregnant and indeed becoming pregnant on several occassions, a woman may never carry a child to term. Resorting to generalizations about processes over which one has no conscious control is, at a minimum, careless. But here's a thought exercise for you: Suppose you're 86 years old, living in retirement enjoying the things that you've worked your whole life for. One day you doze off on your bed in the afternoon and are awakened to the sound of your front door being kicked in. You get out of bed as quietly as you can and peek out into the living room to find two people stealing your stuff. The only phone is in the living room, so there's no calling the police. So, do you have a right to stop them from stealing from your house? Now let's go further: Since there's been some home invasions in your neighborhood lately, you took a shotgun out of your gun safe and placed it under your bed last month. You grab the shotgun and, at a moment when it looks like you'll catch the thieves off guard, you come out and tell them to drop the stuff and surrender themselves. Despite the surprise, they look at you and snicker then keep on loading stuff into their bags, but when you repeat the request and cock the shotgun, they both turn towards you and start advancing. They are unarmed, but being an old man, you have no ability to wrestle or fight with them. They will clearly be able to unarm you and do with you as they please if you don't shoot them. Are you justified in shooting them?
myhumangetsme: Anen: "You have a right to your body and its production, by which your child, of any age below adulthood, relies on you for survival." That's an interesting abuse of the word 'right,' it's almost like you really meant to say 'obligation.'
Anen: "You have a right to your body and its production, by which your child, of any age below adulthood, relies on you for survival."
Read it again. You have a right to your body and its products/production. That's the first part of the sentence. If you also have a child, that child is relying on you and your production for its survival. You've already accepted an obligation to care for that child if you have it. So yes, obligation is in the mix, but I did not misuse the term, I think you misread the sentence. So my question was, does having a total right to your body and its products mean that you can simply cast off the obligation to care for a child you have, like say a two year old? After all, you have an absolute right to your body, don't you? That's the pro-abortion argument, that an absolute right to your body trumps everything else? But that logic falls apart when the child is a toddler and you try to apply it. Because allowing a child to die of neglect is clearly immoral.
myhumangetsme:That aside, equating the reliance of a born child "of any age below adulthood" to that of an unborn child is obviously an uneven analogy.
Not really. In both scenarios a child requires proper living conditions provided by you. The unborn requires the same warmth of shelter that a born child does in your house, the same food from your productive efforts as the food you feed a born one. It's an exact analogy.
myhumangetsme: Anen: "My problem with Rand's and Rothbard's abortion arguments is that they ignore personal responsibility. Pregnancy is a matter of choice, people choose the act that causes them to become pregnant. That is an acceptance of the risk of pregnancy." One would hope that you just caught on to your logical inconsistency, but I doubt it. Pregnancy is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of risk.
Anen: "My problem with Rand's and Rothbard's abortion arguments is that they ignore personal responsibility. Pregnancy is a matter of choice, people choose the act that causes them to become pregnant. That is an acceptance of the risk of pregnancy."
One would hope that you just caught on to your logical inconsistency, but I doubt it. Pregnancy is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of risk.
I don't think it is inconsistent. Let's examine your logic on this one. You say pregnancy is a matter of risk. But the question is, do we know what causes pregnancy. Yes: sex. Do we know that birth control is not a 100% preventive measure: yes. Therefore, knowing this, if anyone goes ahead with sex they have assumed the risk of pregnancy, and cannot claim to be taken by surprise if they become pregnant having freely chosen to have sex.
The only hole in this argument is not the one you picked out, but rather the instance of rape, which is why I followed up with a moral argument from an individual's right to their body and the obligation of a parent to care for a dependent child regardless of the method of pregnancy.
myhumangetsme: Despite choosing to have unprotected sex and using no form of birth control, a woman may still never get pregnant.
She would still be responsible for the child if she did become pregnant. So I'm not sure what you're driving at. Proving the negative opposite does not negate the affirmative case.
myhumangetsme:Furthermore, despite the willingness to become pregnant and indeed becoming pregnant on several occassions, a woman may never carry a child to term. Resorting to generalizations about processes over which one has no conscious control is, at a minimum, careless.
False. You have complete conscious control over whether you have sex. Your argument amounts to: "He didn't commit suicide because he had no conscious control over the processes by which the cyanide he swallowed stopped his heart." It's ludicrous. Obviously sex is the choice and its consequence may be pregnancy, which may or may not follow each instance of sex. But if it does follow, you've assumed the risk thereby and should bear the consequences. Realizing that pregnancy is a choice in the same way that being fat is a choice (in both cases for the vast majority of people in either circumstance) invalidates the view that a pregnancy is akin to an invader or a parasite who no one chooses to invite into their body.
myhumangetsme: But here's a thought exercise for you: Suppose you're 86 years old, living in retirement enjoying the things that you've worked your whole life for. One day you doze off on your bed in the afternoon and are awakened to the sound of your front door being kicked in. You get out of bed as quietly as you can and peek out into the living room to find two people stealing your stuff. The only phone is in the living room, so there's no calling the police. So, do you have a right to stop them from stealing from your house?
myhumangetsme: Now let's go further: Since there's been some home invasions in your neighborhood lately, you took a shotgun out of your gun safe and placed it under your bed last month. You grab the shotgun and, at a moment when it looks like you'll catch the thieves off guard, you come out and tell them to drop the stuff and surrender themselves. Despite the surprise, they look at you and snicker then keep on loading stuff into their bags, but when you repeat the request and cock the shotgun, they both turn towards you and start advancing. They are unarmed, but being an old man, you have no ability to wrestle or fight with them. They will clearly be able to unarm you and do with you as they please if you don't shoot them. Are you justified in shooting them?
At the point they advance on you yes, but there's also no analogy to pregnancy, unless you mean a tubal pregnancy, in which case I support a medically necessary abortion. Interestingly, many mothers in that situation choose to have the child anyway, at risk of their own life.
Not until they make a move to threaten you physically such that you'd be forced to use lethal force is it moral. I don't think an absolutist position on property defense is rational and subscribe to a commensurate force doctrine when it comes to theft.
However, your analogy is not apt even barring that consideration. Because you've smuggled into the analogy a human element not present in pregnancy in the form of thieving thieves.
I'll propose an alternate analogy. A pregnancy is more like an 86 year old man who smokes in bed every night, dozing off with a cigarette in hand. One day he wakes up to his bedroom on fire and barely escapes. Is he responsible for the fire, or is it not his fault because he has no control over the unconscious process of violent oxidation?
The only moral way to look at the issue of abortion is in the context of two living human beings with separate bodies. This reflects the medical reality of the situation. A child's heart begins to beat within 25 days of conception. But it's biologically distinct, separate and self-sufficient from the mother at the point of conception. It requires exactly what the mother needs to survive: food and shelter. It cannot be said to be taking that unlawfully, because it made no choice to come into existence, that being the choice of the mother or father or both. There has never been a pregnancy that arose outside of a choice by an adult human being to have sex, be that an aggressive-coercive choice or a free one.
Unless we count Jesus :P
If you also have a child, that child is relying on you and your production for its survival.
No, they are not. Once a child is born they are reliant on somebody for their survival, not necessarily the carrier. A child in the womb is reliant upon its carrier.
You've already accepted an obligation to care for that child if you have it.
That's like saying because I smoked and it caused me to get lung cancer, I have an obligation to let it flourish.
So my question was, does having a total right to your body and its products mean that you can simply cast off the obligation to care for a child you have, like say a two year old?
What makes you believe this "total right to your body and its products" and the ability to "cast off the obligation to care for a child you have" have anything to do with one another?
After all, you have an absolute right to your body, don't you? That's the pro-abortion argument...
I've never heard the pro-abortion "I have an absolute right to my body" argument, I have however heard the pro-abortion "I own my body" argument, and the two phrases are not logically equivalent.
And yet again, you rely upon the faulty logical implication that because sex causes pregnancy that every act of sex will always cause pregnancy. You have still not proven your assertion that pregnancy is a choice, and based on the nature of biological processes you have no means by which to prove it. Assuming a risk and choosing, in this instance, are two completely different things.
You have complete conscious control over whether you have sex. Your argument amounts to: "He didn't commit suicide because he had no conscious control over the processes by which the cyanide he swallowed stopped his heart." It's ludicrous.
No, what's ludicrous is that you accept and present the empirical finding that ingesting cyanide will kill you, then turn around and reject the empirical finding that all sex does not necessarily result in pregnancy. You don't get to approve of one and reject the other because it's inconvenient to your argument.
Obviously sex is the choice and its consequence may be pregnancy, which may or may not follow each instance of sex. But if it does follow, you've assumed the risk thereby and should bear the consequences.
So if I have sex that doesn't result in pregnancy, but it does result in me contracting a venereal disease, that means I have the responsibility of making sure that disease may live on peacefully in my body? I mean, the cells that comprise the disease are alive, aren't they? Did they ask to be put into my body?
Realizing that pregnancy is a choice in the same way that being fat is a choice (in both cases for the vast majority of people in either circumstance) invalidates the view that a pregnancy is akin to an invader or a parasite who no one chooses to invite into their body.
No, pregnancy is a risk when choosing to have sex just as being fat is a risk when choosing to eat in excess. The combined proposition is nonsense.
No. Not until they make a move to threaten you physically such that you'd be forced to use lethal force.
Considering that you physically cannot fight or wrestle with them, and by the time they are within that range they will have taken away your ability to use the shotgun, at exactly what point will they have then "made a move to threaten you physically?"
I don't think an absolutist position on property defense is rational and subscribe to a commensurate force doctrine when it comes to theft.
Clearly you don't see where I'm going with this, because not only is this not an absolutist position of property defense, I picked this example specifically because of its subjective nature.
Are you trying to say that in pregnancy the unborn does not compel you to surrender your bodily nourishment for its own interests? Does the carrier have conscious control over how nutrients will be shared between themselves and the unborn?
Funny enough, that's not even a valid analogy by your own standards; if he was truly exercising responsibility for his actions he would've stayed and burned to death with his house.
But it's (the child is) biologically distinct, separate and self-sufficient from the mother at the point of conception.
The unborn is most certainly not self-sufficient at the point of conception or at any other point in a pregnancy. If the unborn is self-sufficient at conception then the process of implantation would be superfluous and there'd be no debate on this topic. You're letting the language of an ideology betray reason, just as you are here:
There has never been a pregnancy that arose outside of a choice by an adult human being to have sex...
This is so plainly false it's not even funny. Have we forgotten about in vitro fertilization or the turkey baster so quickly?
It (the child) cannot be said to be taking that unlawfully, because it made no choice to come into existence...
So if the unborn made no choice to come into existence, why exactly would it make a difference if it was then stopped from coming into existence?
myhumangetsme: If you also have a child, that child is relying on you and your production for its survival. No, they are not. Once a child is born they are reliant on somebody for their survival, not necessarily the carrier. A child in the womb is reliant upon its carrier.
Unless you can find someone to accept the responsibility of the child, you have an obligation to that child to act in their interest and survival. It would be immoral to walk away and allow the child to die in the cold. It would be murder, the same as if you were your grandmother's caretaker and left her in the snow overnight.
myhumangetsme: You've already accepted an obligation to care for that child if you have it. That's like saying because I smoked and it caused me to get lung cancer, I have an obligation to let it flourish.
The salient difference is that a child is a person and has rights of its own. Cancerous cells which are your own are both your property and have no rights. So I think your statement here is beyond laughable and not well thought out.
myhumangetsme: So my question was, does having a total right to your body and its products mean that you can simply cast off the obligation to care for a child you have, like say a two year old? What makes you believe this "total right to your body and its products" and the ability to "cast off the obligation to care for a child you have" have anything to do with one another?
Because the obligation to care for a child means that child has a claim on your productive efforts, which is ultimately a claim on your body, because you must use your body to produce. Thus, the right to your own body and productive output can be abrogated by an obligation. There's a very clear connection there, what are you not seeing.
As for casting of the obligation of caring for a child, you cannot ethically simply walk away from a child. You must care for the child until you find someone willing to care for it in your stead. Absent the passing of that obligation, you're on the hook.
myhumangetsme: After all, you have an absolute right to your body, don't you? That's the pro-abortion argument... I've never heard the pro-abortion "I have an absolute right to my body" argument,
I've never heard the pro-abortion "I have an absolute right to my body" argument,
Are you serious. You've never heard a pro-abort person say, "It's my body" or "get your laws off my body"--that's the same thing.
myhumangetsme:I have however heard the pro-abortion "I own my body" argument, and the two phrases are not logically equivalent.
LOL, you don't equate ownership with an absolute right to? Please tell me your definition of ownership so I can laugh at it. I'm sorry but that's exactly what an absolute right is--ownership.
myhumangetsme: I don't think it is inconsistent. Let's examine your logic on this one. You say pregnancy is a matter of risk. But the question is, do we know what causes pregnancy. Yes: sex. Do we know that birth control is not a 100% preventive measure: yes. Therefore, knowing this, if anyone goes ahead with sex they have assumed the risk of pregnancy, and cannot claim to be taken by surprise if they become pregnant having freely chosen to have sex. And yet again, you rely upon the faulty logical implication that because sex causes pregnancy that every act of sex will always cause pregnancy.
And yet again, you rely upon the faulty logical implication that because sex causes pregnancy that every act of sex will always cause pregnancy.
No, I don't. I'm relying on that fact that sex is the only means to cause pregnancy. Kind of a big difference. The assumption of risk doesn't require a guarantee that the low-chance probability event will occur. It means if it does occur, you're now obligated to deal with it.
As a somewhat analogous example, the gambling industry lets you gambling knowing you might win. Gambling is the only way to win a jackpot. But if you do win a jackpot, the casino cannot simply abort your jackpot. They must pay you. They've assumed that if you play you might beat the odds.
myhumangetsme:You have still not proven your assertion that pregnancy is a choice, and based on the nature of biological processes you have no means by which to prove it.
Let's say a guy plays russian roulette. He's accepted there's a minority probability that he might die. You really don't get that a person who has sex understands that there's a small chance they might get pregnant? Of course they do. They may not want that to happen, but if it happens they're obligated because they've created another human being with rights of its own.
If you drive, you don't want an accident to happen, but you accept that it might happen as a condition of driving. Thus, the decision to accept that risk happens every time you get in a car. It's perfectly analogous.
myhumangetsme:Assuming a risk and choosing, in this instance, are two completely different things.
Choosing to assume the risk is my argument. You're trying to turn it into 'they choose to get pregnant'. I never said that. I said they choose to engage in behavior with a risk, a chance of negative consequences and the have assumed the risk, meaning accepted it. If they then become pregnant as a result of the free choice of having sex, they can be asked to live up to that obligation, just as if someone gets in an automobile accident they must now deal with compensating the other party, etc.
myhumangetsme: You have complete conscious control over whether you have sex. Your argument amounts to: "He didn't commit suicide because he had no conscious control over the processes by which the cyanide he swallowed stopped his heart." It's ludicrous. No, what's ludicrous is that you accept and present the empirical finding that ingesting cyanide will kill you, then turn around and reject the empirical finding that all sex does not necessarily result in pregnancy. You don't get to approve of one and reject the other because it's inconvenient to your argument.
I hope you understand that things must be taken in context. The context here was 'subconscious processes'. Thus the nit you pick here has no bearing on my argument. i could've chosen a better example if I wanted to incorporate that element as well.
The russian roulette example would be analogous. Say we take a gun with many more than 6 bullets, such that the risk of pregnancy after sex and the risk of dying when pulling the trigger are the same. The choice to have sex is the choice to assume the risk and the consequences therefore should you get pregnant. Just as the russian roulette player can blame only himself if he pulls the trigger and the gun goes off. In either case, the pregnancy happens as a result of non-conscious processes, just as the suicide happens as a result of non-conscious chemical reactions. But it's still a suicide. And it's still a pregnancy. Neither were wanted, necessarily. But both were assumed risks.
myhumangetsme: Obviously sex is the choice and its consequence may be pregnancy, which may or may not follow each instance of sex. But if it does follow, you've assumed the risk thereby and should bear the consequences. So if I have sex that doesn't result in pregnancy, but it does result in me contracting a venereal disease, that means I have the responsibility of making sure that disease may live on peacefully in my body? I mean, the cells that comprise the disease are alive, aren't they? Did they ask to be put into my body?
Again, that's not a question that's even cogent since VD does not have anything like a body of its own nor any rights of it own, as a fetus does. The fact of a fetus's rights is where the ethical tangle lays. VD, not human, harmful to life, no rights, kill it off as you wish.
myhumangetsme: Realizing that pregnancy is a choice in the same way that being fat is a choice (in both cases for the vast majority of people in either circumstance) invalidates the view that a pregnancy is akin to an invader or a parasite who no one chooses to invite into their body. No, pregnancy is a risk when choosing to have sex just as being fat is a risk when choosing to eat in excess. The combined proposition is nonsense.
In either case, you're engaging in behavior with a risk of a negative consequence. The most sex engaged in the higher the chance of pregnancy due to frequent exposure to risk factor. Perhaps instead of fat it could be diabetes, something that may or may not trigger, perhaps heart disease. It doesn't matter. Assumption of risk is assumption of risk.
myhumangetsme: No. Not until they make a move to threaten you physically such that you'd be forced to use lethal force. Considering that you physically cannot fight or wrestle with them, and by the time they are within that range they will have taken away your ability to use the shotgun, at exactly what point will they have then "made a move to threaten you physically?"
I initially misread his comment and changed this answer immediately after posting it, see original comment above. I changed it to say that, if they're moving toward you, you can then shoot as you are being threatened. My changed comment goes thus:
myhumangetsme: I don't think an absolutist position on property defense is rational and subscribe to a commensurate force doctrine when it comes to theft. Clearly you don't see where I'm going with this, because not only is this not an absolutist position of property defense, I picked this example specifically because of its subjective nature.
Do tell. Because I see nothing subjecive there.
myhumangetsme: However, your analogy is not apt even barring that consideration. Because you've smuggled into the analogy a human element not present in pregnancy in the form of thieving thieves. Are you trying to say that in pregnancy the unborn does not compel you to surrender your bodily nourishment for its own interests?
Are you trying to say that in pregnancy the unborn does not compel you to surrender your bodily nourishment for its own interests?
Correct, they do not, for that implies the unborn would have made a decision to do so. However, if you trace the logical flow of cause an effect, the unborn only exists within the mother because of the choice of the father and mother to have sex. It may be an unintended result from that choice, but again it was an assumed risk. The unborn cannot be blamed for the choice of the parents. It is far more apt to say that the unborn has been invited in by the assumed risk of choosing to have sex knowing that pregnancy could result, even if that chance were small.
myhumangetsme:Does the carrier have conscious control over how nutrients will be shared between themselves and the unborn?
They need not. They need only choose to engage in a behavior with a risk of pregnancy and then become pregnant to gain an obligation.
myhumangetsme:I'll propose an alternate analogy. A pregnancy is more like an 86 year old man who smokes in bed every night, dozing off with a cigarette in hand. One day he wakes up to his bedroom on fire and barely escapes. Is he responsible for the fire, or is it not his fault because he has no control over the unconscious process of violent oxidation? Funny enough, that's not even a valid analogy by your own standards; if he was truly exercising responsibility for his actions he would've stayed and burned to death with his house.
False. The analogy was whom the insurance company will blame for the fire, and thus who will have to pay the damages, which is more akin to having a child (loss of the product of your work) than death (most mothers in fact live through the birthing process). If the man is responsible for the fire, the insurance company does not have to compensate him. It is his responsibility, despite not wanting that outcome. He assumed the risk of burning down his house by smoking in bed, knowing a fire could result.
myhumangetsme: But it's (the child is) biologically distinct, separate and self-sufficient from the mother at the point of conception. The unborn is most certainly not self-sufficient at the point of conception or at any other point in a pregnancy.
The unborn is most certainly not self-sufficient at the point of conception or at any other point in a pregnancy.
Defintion self-sufficiency then and I'll destroy your rationale. I assure you it is biologically self-sufficient as long as it has shelter and food. You too are biologically self-sufficient only given shelter and food. I throw that qualifier of self-sufficiency in because, if you read my sentence again, it's in there. The child does not need the mother biologically to survive. Yet every cell in your body does need the rest of your body to survive. If you gave a single-celled child the required prenatal environment and food, even if you could perfectly fake it in a machine (which we will one day be able to do), it will survive just fine. In fact, given that environment, left alone, it will become an adult human being in time.
myhumangetsme:If the unborn is self-sufficient at conception then the process of implantation would be superfluous and there'd be no debate on this topic.
Biologically self-sufficient, which is the only kind a non-thining entity at that age is capable of. If it was not biologically self-sufficient, we wouldn't be able to make machines to approximate a womb. A single cell cannot perform all the functions necessary to keep itself alive, not even a group of cells. Cut your liver out of you and it will still die, given shelter and food, because it will be attacked by backteria and viruses, not to mention not having blood. But a fetus will not die.
If the corpus of the fetus were not separate at conception, you would have to explain when it does separate. The truth is, the body of the fetus separates physically from the mother during ovulation and floats through the uterine ducts complete free of attachment. The sperm too travel free of the father. The implantation does not comingle the flesh of the child and its mother, but keeps them distinct. The child does not share blood with the mother, for instance, at no point in the pregnancy can that happen. Else children with different blood types from their mothers would die immediately.
myhumangetsme:You're letting the language of an ideology betray reason, just as you are here: There has never been a pregnancy that arose outside of a choice by an adult human being to have sex... This is so plainly false it's not even funny. Have we forgotten about in vitro fertilization or the turkey baster so quickly?
You obviously don't understand what a decision is, what a choice in. In vitro fertilization requires the conscious choice of a doctor to implant a mother. A turkey baster, same thing. How is this hard to understand? Okay, I shouldn't have said sex, I should have said pregnancy. I misspoke. My point was more about choice than about means.
myhumangetsme: It (the child) cannot be said to be taking that unlawfully, because it made no choice to come into existence... So if the unborn made no choice to come into existence, why exactly would it make a difference if it was then stopped from coming into existence?
Because it has a right to its own body, just as you do, as every human being does. You do realize that the question you asked could be used to rationalize the murder of any person of any age, right? It's that morally bankrupt. I could simply say that you never chose to come into existence either, so why would it make a difference if your existence was ended. But the fact is, you have a right to your body and life as a human being. No other qualifier matters, not age, not size, not number of cells owned.
Unwanted consequences are not always purely random.
Pure randomness is an ellusive concept. You cannot say something is purely random if rational decisions can affect the odds of the outcomes.
People that frequently engage in unprotected casual sex are not subject to the same chances of parenting than people that take precautions such as contraceptive methods or abstinency.
Unless you can find someone to accept the responsibility of the child...
You have this habit of wiggling your position in new and exciting directions once you make a statement that leaves it susceptible to a valid counterpoint.
...you have an obligation to that child to act in their interest and survival.
This rests on the rather large assumption that survival is in the child's interests to begin with. How do you intend to claim this with such certainty? Of course life tends to perpetuate itself, but that's a separate issue from the notion that a child will always wish to survive under any circumstances.
It would be immoral to walk away and allow the child to die in the cold.
Would it be more moral for both mother and child to die if the situation dictated that either the mother survives or they both die?
It would be murder, the same as if you were your grandmother's caretaker and left her in the snow overnight.
Again, you wish to paint over all possible scenarios with a broad brush. There are instances where doing so is not only not murder, but is moral.
A baby has rights of its own? What are they? I keep waiting for babies fresh from the womb to articulate them to me but I have yet to meet one yet that managed to. Rothbard made the argument that babies who are unable to petition for their rights get a free pass because they are future human adults, but such an argument is absurd. What a world of high morals we would be in if we avoided dealing with rights in situations based on one's potential for understanding their rights in the future.
And just what makes a fetus more deserving of rights than cancer? Ther mere fact of "human" life? Your use of the word 'responsibility' is strongly analogous to that of the word 'punishment', so cancer is my just punishment for smoking no different than pregnancy would be my just punishment for sex. So with all due respect, I think your position is similarly beyond laughable and not well thought out.
Amazingly, you managed not to answer my query at all.
No, I don't. I'm relying on that fact that sex is the only means to cause pregnancy.
So you're relying on a fallacy? That's telling.
I will now cut through layers of rigamarole to get to a core issue of much misunderstanding.
Choosing to assume the risk is my argument. You're trying to turn it into 'they choose to get pregnant'. I never said that.
Oh, so when you clearly said "Pregnancy is a choice," we were all just supposed to know that we should break out the Idiot's Guide to Anti-Abortion Rhetoric and Ethics in order to properly interpret that phrase, as opposed to taking it at its very obvious 'face value' meaning? Why don't you just take 'responsibility' for this poor choice of wording?
The context here was 'subconscious processes'.
The context was also intent, and you still disregard the fact that people have sex for reasons other than procreation, whereas I've heard of no one who chooses to throw some cyanide down their throat who didn't know what it was going to do to them. Again, empirical findings don't suggest ingesting cyanide in that manner might kill you, they say it will kill you. No empirical finding suggests that having sex will result in pregnancy.
Again, who are you in all of your human arrogance to say that a venereal disease has no right to life? Delightfully selective, this right to life is.
At the point they advance on you yes, but there's also no analogy to pregnancy...
Let's talk about that. So we've established that the 86-year old man has the right to fire on the thieves once they begin to advance on him. Now let's say that we're not an 86-year old man, we're a 30-year old man. Does a 30-year old man have the same right to fire on them? Why or why not?
Correct, they do not, for that implies the unborn would have made a decision to do so.
That says nothing to the fact that there is no conscious control over what portion of nutrients the unborn gets and when they get them when the mother ingests food. Decision or no decision, the mother is compelled to surrender sustenance needed for her own survival.
They need not.
Again, that says nothing to the question, which deals in biological fact. The biological fact exists independent of moral considerations.
False. The analogy was whom the insurance company will blame for the fire, and thus who will have to pay the damages...
Apparently you don't understand the implications of your own worldview. In your world of 'responsibility' as a form of 'punishment' if it must be, one who risks getting pregnant must necessarily follow through with pregnancy. Thus if one risks their property by smoking cigarettes in bed (and your life is included in your property), then they must necessarily follow through with the losing of their property, however much that may be, if a fire results. Including their life.
In addition (again), the notion of 'blame' is necessarily related to the notion of 'intent'. There are many actions for which you can be to blame where your lack of intent renders such blame lesser in meaning if not insignificant.
Defintion self-sufficiency then and I'll destroy your rationale.
Srsly?
Self-sufficient: able to supply one's own or its own needs without external assistance
I assure you it is biologically self-sufficient as long as it has shelter and food.
For which it requires external assistance. Even if we wish to fully stretch the credibility of the term, the only point at which a baby could even be reasonably said to be self-sufficient is at full term. At conception it's not even debatable.
I obviously understand what words mean, so don't blame me when you butcher your own argument with lazy ideological terminology.
Because it has a right to its own body...
That's not the issue, the issue is whether it has a right to more than its own body. Do you have a right to continue to post on these forums?
myhumangetsme: ...you have an obligation to that child to act in their interest and survival. This rests on the rather large assumption that survival is in the child's interests to begin with. How do you intend to claim this with such certainty? Of course life tends to perpetuate itself, but that's a separate issue from the notion that a child will always wish to survive under any circumstances.
Such circumstances in which death to a child in your protection is the best course are so rare that they're hardly worth speaking about. So, you're nit-picking. We could discuss those but it's off topic, and suffice to say I aknowledge such circumstances exist, however rare. In the absense of such extenuating circumstances, in the vast majority of cases, furthering the life of the child is the obviously moral conclusion, since that which further life is the basis of that which is moral, and only extreme circumstances can lead one to choose death over life, when all options of a quality of life are surely extinguished.
myhumangetsme: It would be immoral to walk away and allow the child to die in the cold. Would it be more moral for both mother and child to die if the situation dictated that either the mother survives or they both die?
In all such cases where the mother's life is the threatened by a pregnancy, the process of what to do should be left up to the mother. If she decided to risk a birth, and by that both of their lives, it would certainly be moral to allow her to take that course of action. Outside a specific circumstance like that, give me situation that fulfills the circumstances you posit in your last sentence here. If it's not existentially possible there's no point in considering the question. Prove to me it's existentially possible by crafting a situation that fulfills it and then I'll comment.
myhumangetsme: It would be murder, the same as if you were your grandmother's caretaker and left her in the snow overnight. Again, you wish to paint over all possible scenarios with a broad brush. There are instances where doing so is not only not murder, but is moral.
In my scenario, the grandmother is a perfectly healthy woman, with a decent quality of life, who simply cannot walk. I accept there are situations where allowing someone to die would be the moral thing to do. My intent is not to brush such situations off the table. You're failing to hold context. The context here is one of obligation for another's life, not whether there's any imaginable situation where one could let grandma die. You are therefore implicitly agreeing, by avoiding the context, that one has an obligation to another they have sole care for, and that allowing them to die would be murder.
myhumangetsme: The salient difference is that a child is a person and has rights of its own. Cancerous cells which are your own are both your property and have no rights. So I think your statement here is beyond laughable and not well thought out. A baby has rights of its own? What are they?
A baby has rights of its own? What are they?
Of course it does, equal to your own. For one thing it exists and therefore has the right not to be murdered. All other rights are corollary to its existence, including self-ownership, and by virtue of self-ownership it's right to its own life, to not have that life taken from it unlawfully.
myhumangetsme: I keep waiting for babies fresh from the womb to articulate them to me but I have yet to meet one yet that managed to. Rothbard made the argument that babies who are unable to petition for their rights get a free pass because they are future human adults, but such an argument is absurd.
Yes, it is an absured argument. So why did you raise it. We recognize the rights of many human beings whom cannot articulate their rights whom are born and alive. Say a child is born in a coma from which it will never wake, say it's born without a brain, you can be prosecuted for killing it.
myhumangetsme:What a world of high morals we would be in if we avoided dealing with rights in situations based on one's potential for understanding their rights in the future.
There is no such qualification needed to have rights. What's needed to have rights is existence. The child exists, is alive, therefore it has rights. It does not suddenly become alive at the point of birth. It has been alive since it became a unique human being, at conception.
myhumangetsme:And just what makes a fetus more deserving of rights than cancer? Ther mere fact of "human" life?
Clearly, there is no other standard. It is no mere fact, it is the only fact, the only possible fact.
myhumangetsme:Your use of the word 'responsibility' is strongly analogous to that of the word 'punishment',
How so? I disagree. One has a responsibility to a dog they adopt as a pet, none to a botfly larva. Let's say people engaged in an acty which had a risk of dog adoption, if they ended up getting the dog they would still have a responsibility to that pet, until they could find someone to take that responsibility. With a child, the responsibility it moreso. Cancer is more like a botfly than a dog, because there is no causal choice involved with a botfly or with cancer, whereas in the dog scenario, as with sex, there is human causal choice involved in becoming pregnant.
myhumangetsme:so cancer is my just punishment for smoking no different than pregnancy would be my just punishment for sex.
That's ridiculous, and a strawman, and I have never argued that. Using the term 'punishment' about pregnancy is a value judgment. It betrays more of your own values than says anything about me. You cannot justify murder by calling pregnancy a 'punishment'.
myhumangetsme: I will now cut through layers of rigamarole to get to a core issue of much misunderstanding. Choosing to assume the risk is my argument. You're trying to turn it into 'they choose to get pregnant'. I never said that. Oh, so when you clearly said "Pregnancy is a choice," we were all just supposed to know that we should break out the Idiot's Guide to Anti-Abortion Rhetoric and Ethics in order to properly interpret that phrase, as opposed to taking it at its very obvious 'face value' meaning? Why don't you just take 'responsibility' for this poor choice of wording?
Pregnancy is a choice in the sense that if one chooses to have sex knowing there's a risk of pregnancy, one has chosen to risk getting pregnant. Therefore, if one does get pregnant, we ask ourselves a causal question: what choice led to this pregnancy. What else, it was the choice to have sex. You should take my statement in context, not isolate and ignore.
myhumangetsme: The context here was 'subconscious processes'. The context was also intent, and you still disregard the fact that people have sex for reasons other than procreation,
The context was also intent, and you still disregard the fact that people have sex for reasons other than procreation,
I don't disregard that at all. I simply say that it does not abrogate your obligation to a living human being that result from said other reasons if you do get pregnant.
myhumangetsme: Again, that's not a question that's even cogent since VD does not have anything like a body of its own nor any rights of it own, as a fetus does. The fact of a fetus's rights is where the ethical tangle lays. VD, not human, harmful to life, no rights, kill it off as you wish. Again, who are you in all of your human arrogance to say that a venereal disease has no right to life? Delightfully selective, this right to life is.
The right to life only exists between human beings. Duh. You're reall scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
myhumangetsme: At the point they advance on you yes, but there's also no analogy to pregnancy... Let's talk about that. So we've established that the 86-year old man has the right to fire on the thieves once they begin to advance on him. Now let's say that we're not an 86-year old man, we're a 30-year old man. Does a 30-year old man have the same right to fire on them? Why or why not?
Of course. Because they are threatening bodily harm by advancing, and in context of your scenario are clearly intent on harm. Many courts today would say unless the attacker has an actual weapon on them you're not within your rights. Bit of a gray area there. Why are we talking about this.
myhumangetsme: Correct, they do not, for that implies the unborn would have made a decision to do so. That says nothing to the fact that there is no conscious control over what portion of nutrients the unborn gets and when they get them when the mother ingests food. Decision or no decision, the mother is compelled to surrender sustenance needed for her own survival.
But, causally, she is impelled to do so as a result of her own decision to have sex, which resulted in pregnancy. She assumed the risk of pregnancy by choosing sex. Thus, she cannot view the child as an illegitimate invader. Even if she could, the child is a human being that cannot be killed without cause.
myhumangetsme: False. The analogy was whom the insurance company will blame for the fire, and thus who will have to pay the damages... Apparently you don't understand the implications of your own worldview. In your world of 'responsibility' as a form of 'punishment' if it must be, one who risks getting pregnant must necessarily follow through with pregnancy. Thus if one risks their property by smoking cigarettes in bed (and your life is included in your property), then they must necessarily follow through with the losing of their property, however much that may be, if a fire results. Including their life.
I disagree. But rather than argue about applicability of analogies let's move back to the subject and deal directly.
myhumangetsme: In addition (again), the notion of 'blame' is necessarily related to the notion of 'intent'. There are many actions for which you can be to blame where your lack of intent renders such blame lesser in meaning if not insignificant.
Such as?
myhumangetsme: Defintion self-sufficiency then and I'll destroy your rationale. Srsly? Self-sufficient: able to supply one's own or its own needs without external assistance
You yourself are not self-sufficient, naked and without food if left on the north pole.
Again, we need to qualify using biologic-self-sufficiency or else your point is not cogent in the slightest, because the same problems of self-sufficiency apply equally to the mother. In order to find any point where the child cannot be considered self-sufficient, you must find something the mother can do that the child cannot do. The only thing there is, is that the child cannot think, cannot be conscious, cannot work. Yet, this has zero ethical implications. Justice is equal for the genius and the dullard.
myhumangetsme: I assure you it is biologically self-sufficient as long as it has shelter and food. For which it requires external assistance.
For which it requires external assistance.
It's really a moot issue, because applying the same logic to a born child results in an unethical action. A two year old also requires external assistance, yet this does not give you the right to murder it. So does someone in a coma, yet you cannot murder them. You must be able to apply any ethical test you give in all situations for it to work. You won't be able to find one.
myhumangetsme: Even if we wish to fully stretch the credibility of the term, the only point at which a baby could even be reasonably said to be self-sufficient is at full term. At conception it's not even debatable.
A child is biologically self sufficient. It grows itself. If left alone it will come to term. The mother's body does not build it, it builds itself.
myhumangetsme: Because it has a right to its own body... That's not the issue, the issue is whether it has a right to more than its own body.
That's not the issue, the issue is whether it has a right to more than its own body.
It has a right to life, as a living, self-owning human being. As for the nutrients and protection given it by the mother, if she chosen to have sex, she has accepted the possible consequences, including pregnancy. And pregnancy cannot be terminated because it involves another human being whom has rights of their own (unlike VD).
All of this will be a moot issue when we perfect the artificial womb. At that point, the unborn will retain their right to life and can be handed off to organizations that will take them to term mechanically. It would be like adoption for the unborn.
Until then, I cannot ethically justify murder of another human being, as you're prepared to do clearly.
And the greatest ethical test of a human being is how you treat another human being when you have total power over them, as the mother does over the unborn. On that basis, you're a terrible human being, and have more in common with the nazis and their similar rationalizations of murder than with me.
You should start over ethically, 'cause right now you're morally bankrupt.