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Comprehensive Libertarian Pro Life Argument.

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DD5 replied on Mon, Jul 11 2011 8:41 AM

 

If a woman who owns her body cannot expel what is living off her parasitically inside her without being subjected to violence or thereat of violence from even [apparently] some confused libertarians who are ready to beat her, imprison her, or kill her (or the doctor who provides the service) then she and the doctor are prisoners, hostages, slaves, victimes, or whatever you want to call it, of such aggressors.

The fetus does not act in the praxeological sense of the term, thus he can enjoy no such equivalent rights as to the mother. The child is at the mercy of the mother, period.  God (for all you religious people) has put the child in this situation and created this moral dilemma.   If she is wrong, then her final judgment is before God, and not before you!  

Most of you people relying on the fact that the fetus is a human life are missing the point.  NAP is not about protecting human life, but about protecting property rights.  Not all human lives enjoy the same level of property rights always and everywhere.

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Clayton replied on Mon, Jul 11 2011 11:23 AM

  If she is wrong, then her final judgment is before God, and not before you! 

Precisely!

Most of you people relying on the fact that the fetus is a human life are missing the point.  NAP is not about protecting human life, but about protecting property rights.  Not all human lives enjoy the same level of property rights always and everywhere.

This is also spot on. And this is why we end up in the debate over what is or is not, in fact, human life. Such debate is a waste of time. The real question is who has the right to act unimpeded, the mother who wants to abort or those who want to compel the mother to give birth to the child alive?

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Common law is not identically equal to trespass law. I object to your treatment of abortion as subject to trespass law, or even meaningfully informed by it. The treatment of abortion under common law, however, is precisely what I'm trying to speculate about.
I think you are objecting to a word. The analogy of trespassing is a good analogy for the concepts of right/remedy, trespassing against a right and the proper remedy for trespass.

let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun -Aristotle

The abortion issue hasn't changed in a couple thousand years. When does life begin? The things that have changed, are public opinion on breeding purity, killing deformed children, etc. Abortion has always been around with varying degrees of public support in each civilization.

Since there is no compelling evidence to settle the question when life begins no system of law is able to opinion a remedy for a trespass against something that can not be defined. Who has standing to argue on behalf of something that can not be defined? Since God is not filing claims on behalf of unborn persons, the law can only provide remedies to disputes between men, women, and those who trespass against the rights of men or women.
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"living off her parasitically" This is the most ridicilous I ever have read. I also wrote we'll never have any way to stop a woman on an abort. But what we can do is not support here in any way. That's easy. She aborts on her own expense. Easy. If someone want to see the child live he/she may bear the expensed of giving birth to this human. No one ever pro abortion can deny this child his right to live. And you know exactly that you can't escape this. And this is what makes you so angry.
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Clayton replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 1:04 AM

Angry? No anger here. I understand and sympathize with the urge to say that a woman should have to bear the child if the father and/or other persons want it to live. The problem is that the woman's body is her property and to say that the other relatives have a right to see the child alive (or, what is the same, that the child has a right to live of its own) implies that they have the right to induce her to deliver it alive even though that entails aggression against her body. This is clearly incompatible with liberal principles.

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Bert replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 5:46 PM

I'm not angry because someone had an abortion.  Personally, I feel a good majority needs them and should have had them in the past.  The only anger I have are so called libertarians who still support coercion against people owning their bodies.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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magnetic replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 5:57 PM

Why should a persons individuality hold any bearing on whether or not a person may be murdered? A person in a libertarian society is secure in his property regardless of the manner in which his mind works. A person could be totally unaware that he is an individual and still be assured that his life is safe from aggression.

It has no bearing on whether or not a person "may be" murdered, since we are considering non-persons. One is assured that his life is safe from agression not by the laws in a society, but by the precautions that one takes (carrying a weapon, hiring bodyguards or buying insurance against agressive acts). Criminals never regard the laws, else they wouldn't be criminals.

Further, this distinction is incapable of differentiating between a useless mass of flesh and bone and an infant.

That is the point I am making, that an infant is a (somewhat) useless mass of flesh.

If you insist that being an "individual" has some sort of bearing on this subject (I don't believe it does.), then you would also have to insist that infants and toddlers are possessions to be discarded at will as well. (Or at least to be discarded at the will of the mother and father.)

Well, I would not "discard" any infants or toddlers belonging to me, but others are free to do so. No one owes anything to anyone else. To assume otherwise is a socialist notion of justice.

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magnetic replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 6:06 PM

Since there is no compelling evidence to settle the question when life begins

It has nothing to do with when life begins. Biologically, life begins at conception, I have always conceded the point to "pro-lifers." The important question is "where do rights begin." Rights do not begin at conception, but only at an indeterminate level of human development, once a human is capable of rational, deliberative discourse. Then the human can assert his rights.

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Seraiah replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 11:01 PM
Clayton- Tell that to the innumerable slaves who have existed throughout history and exist today. Manifesto assertions are a dime a dozen.
Under libertarian tradition, people are either the owners of their bodies, their bodies are protected from aggression, or both. If you want to deny these assumptions, then you deny the libertarian philosophy and you should start your own thread to espouse your own philosophy. Maybe "Claytonism".
Clayton- As Catalan has pointed out, this is not true, the mother can simply expel and repudiate the child. However, I think Catalan has neglected the detail of whether the mother can be forced to remove the baby non-destructively. I'm not an expert on abortion procedures but my understanding is that in some cases abortion enables the mother to undergo less extensive damage to her body during removal of the child. I think the mother's property rights in her body supersede the guardianship rights of the father or other potential guardians in this case but we really can't know for sure absent a free market in law. It's all speculation.
The child can not be expelled without being harmed, or put in harms way. If you harm a person or put him in harms way, you are aggressing against that person. Under libertarian tradition, aggression (initiation of force.) is never legitimate. Murder may be prosecuted by anyone, not just those that share a bloodline.
Clayton- I think you're missing my point completely.
That's because you have changed your position from this:
The property is not the baby since prenatal babies cannot argue their rights at law.
To this:
The baby cannot speak on its own behalf. So, someone must speak on its behalf.
So your position now is that the property in question is the "right" of the parents to speak for a child that does not yet exist. I don't know where to begin to argue against this position because it's so abstract and faith-based that I am actually baffled by it. Maybe some other time...
Clayton- The relatives (including legal relatives such as husband and wife) would seek damages on the basis that the homicide violated their rights in the continued life of the now dead individual.
Prosecuting murder on this basis is exactly the same as prosecuting someone because they hurt your feelings. Since when do you have a right to the continued life of another individual? Where do these obscure rights come from? More importantly, where do these rights find a basis in libertarian assumptions?
Clayton- You're assuming your own conclusion.
A embryo/fetus is scientifically the same organism that develops into an infant. (Just like an adolescant develops into an adult.) An infant is a human, therefore a embryo/fetus is a human. All humans should be protected against aggression. (A libertarian assumption. Non-aggression principle.) Further, because a embryo/fetus is a human, killing it is homicide and because an embryo/fetus is incapable of aggression, the act is murder. I have not assumed that conclusion, I have showed you every step of the way how I got there.
Friedrich Dominicus- What should you do to a mother which has aborted children? Kill her?
At the very least be forcefully neutered.
DD5- The fetus does not act in the praxeological sense of the term, thus he can enjoy no such equivalent rights as to the mother.
You are saying that a person loses rights based on the amount of physical and/or mental action a person can take. Therefore, all I have to do to prove you wrong is to show you one instance in which a person is completely immobilized and mentally incompetant, but preserves all his rights. A sleeping person.
DD5- God (for all you religious people) has put the child in this situation and created this moral dilemma. If she is wrong, then her final judgment is before God, and not before you!
This doesn't deserve a response. You should thank me for my charity.
DD5- NAP is not about protecting human life, but about protecting property rights.
If a person didn't own his own his own body, and if it wasn't protected against aggression, then your argument might be valid.
"...Bitcoin [may] already [be] the world's premiere currency, if we take ratio of exchange to commodity value as a measure of success ... because the better that ratio the more valuable purely as money that thing must be" -Anenome
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DD5 replied on Tue, Jul 12 2011 11:50 PM

 

The child can not be expelled without being harmed, or put in harms way. If you harm a person or put him in harms way, you are aggressing against that person. Under libertarian tradition, aggression (initiation of force.) is never legitimate.

Libertarianism is not a tradition.  And aggression is never legitimate perhaps for  a pacifist, not for a libertarian.  Big difference!  

 
DD5- NAP is not about protecting human life, but about protecting property rights.
If a person didn't own his own his own body, and if it wasn't protected against aggression, then your argument might be valid..

It is quite clear that you are totally confused about libertarinaism and NAP.  

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Bert replied on Wed, Jul 13 2011 1:11 AM

At the very least be forcefully neutered.

It's okay to neuter, but abortions are wrong?  What kind of thinking is that?  Who's to decide who's to be neutered on what reasoning (reminds me of some despotic one child policy...)?  Also, the thinking is a bit backwards, if you ask me.  Person A gets pregnant, it was not intentional, and she cannot raise a child at this point in her life, so she has an abortion.  As a punishment, you make it to where she can literally have as much sex as she wants, and will never get pregnant.  It's like when a father catches his kid smoking a cig, and makes him smoke an entire pack/carton as punishment.  Sounds more like enabling to me.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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Bill replied on Wed, Jul 13 2011 11:28 AM

Seraiah-

The child can not be expelled without being harmed, or put in harms way. If you harm a person or put him in harms way, you are aggressing against that person. Under libertarian tradition, aggression (initiation of force.) is never legitimate.  
 

This is your best arguement I think. Putting someone in harms way. Do you think this emplies a positive obligation to provide for another person till they can be removed from your property. Example, person shows up at your house, you invite them in. Then you ask them to leave for any reason you want. They then must leave, but there is a snow storm and its below zero and they have no coats able to protect them from the snow and cold. Am I obligated to hold them on my property, feed, shelter, and maintain their health until the storm subsides and the temperature returns to normal? What if their use of your property cost you dearly financially and in resources, such as having to choose between eating yourself or feeding them? Maybe they are a smoker and you have a severe alergy to smoke (your throat closes up and you die style)? Do you still have to maintain them?

 

 

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MaikU replied on Wed, Jul 13 2011 11:33 AM

But fetus isn't even a CHILD, for fuck's sake.

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)

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JackCuyler replied on Wed, Jul 13 2011 11:58 AM
DD5:
And aggression is never legitimate perhaps for a pacifist, not for a libertarian. Big difference!
Aggression violates the Non-Aggression Principle, always. I think you meant to say, "Violence," or, "Force," rather than, "Aggression." There is a very big difference.


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DD5 replied on Wed, Jul 13 2011 1:10 PM

JackCuyler:
DD5:
And aggression is never legitimate perhaps for a pacifist, not for a libertarian. Big difference!
Aggression violates the Non-Aggression Principle, always. I think you meant to say, "Violence," or, "Force," rather than, "Aggression." There is a very big difference.

 

It's a matter of definition, but point taken.  It's a very fine line between the two that is not always easy to make.    However, the commenter in response to my commet seems to be equating any cause of physical harm on human life with "aggression", leaving no room for any legitimate acts of violence.  He is not interested in arguing against the proposition that the fetus may be considered an intruder when the mother decides she does not want to carry it any longer, but instead, he focuses on the physical violence inflicted on the fetus and the ultimate consequences as a result of abortion.

 

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I support full rights to the unborn and undead. Stop the zombie killing.

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Bert replied on Thu, Jul 14 2011 3:00 AM

If the fetus is not a registered US citizen does it get the same rights under the Constitution as the rest of us?

/partial sarcasm

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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This is your best arguement I think. Putting someone in harms way. Do you think this emplies a positive obligation to provide for another person till they can be removed from your property. Example, person shows up at your house, you invite them in. Then you ask them to leave for any reason you want. They then must leave, but there is a snow storm and its below zero and they have no coats able to protect them from the snow and cold. Am I obligated to hold them on my property, feed, shelter, and maintain their health until the storm subsides and the temperature returns to normal? What if their use of your property cost you dearly financially and in resources, such as having to choose between eating yourself or feeding them? Maybe they are a smoker and you have a severe alergy to smoke (your throat closes up and you die style)? Do you still have to maintain them?

While not directed at me I reassert a previous response.

No human being comes out of a womb self sufficient.
No human being is obligated to provide charity.

Just because it might be good manners or good morals to provide charity to someone in need doesn't make anyone obligated to provide charity.

On the other side of the coin.  I find nothing wrong with people discriminating against or ostracizing people in their communities who do not exercise arguably good manners or morals.

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Bill replied on Thu, Jul 14 2011 5:21 PM

 

No human being comes out of a womb self sufficient.
No human being is obligated to provide charity.

Just because it might be good manners or good morals to provide charity to someone in need doesn't make anyone obligated to provide charity.

 

I agree with you on both of those points. Your analysis doesn't cover his argument though. His point is that an abortion puts a child in harms way. If I push you into a river and you drown, am I muderer or did the river murder you? Obviously I put you in harms way. For a child anywhere except a womb or uninvented artificial womb is a dangerous place. In this instance he is equating those two scenarios as a muderous act. 

 

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I push you

is initiating aggression.

Aggressive Action -> Result -> Remedy

I push you

I push an organism

I push _________

I posted Aristotle's quote because it's the ___________ that has always been undefined.  It's the ___________ that has always been in dispute.

There is no evidence to consider when __________ has any sensation attributed with life.  Most believe there is sensation when the organism exists the womb.  Some believe there is sensation in the late term of pregnancy prior to the organism exiting the womb.  Some believe there is sensation even earlier.

It's the sensation that brings people discomfort.  Most people are uncomfortable with the concepts of inflicting pain or suffering.  People do not empathize with killing a single cell organism when there is no concept of sensation to create conditions of perceived pain or suffering.

There are no remedies for a possibility or a possible future outcome. The very concept of remedy only deals with the past.  Again this is why the definition of life is important.  To remedy past aggressive actions.

In any event voluntary society offers the most opportunity for unborn persons.  Life is more profitable than death.

This is my answer to the direct question.

It is unjust to coerce a woman to birth an unborn person without a remedy or restitution.

It is unjust to punish a women without remedy or restitution for initiating aggression to prevent birth of an unwanted unborn person.

 

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Wheylous replied on Mon, Jul 18 2011 6:15 AM

I myself am split on the issue, as I see arguments both ways.

The fetus is in the creation process, and is not yet a human, it's raw material owned by the mother and in 9 months depending what health she keeps her work in creates a final product, but til then the mother owns the womb and the materials that are creating

Hm, but it may be removed and be grown into a new person. Does this mean that we have created a new human being out of nothing, pure raw materials? No.

She can refuse to eat. She can commit suicide.

Aha! Now that is interesting! Her being required to keep the baby alive violates her self-ownership right! Quite nice, quite nice.

She can remove it without harming it

I've considered this before. Can she really? Because it's not a longshot from there to say that a mother may neglect her child the same way (not feed it). And unless we are willing to go into that territory (which I wouldn't mind discussing, mind you), then this argument is not correct.

Consent to sex=/= consent to conceiving a child

Hm, that is a good point, because a woman might not know of the sex/child relationship (I know, odd). That brings in the question of whether political theories should take into account "common knowledge" or not. Yet again, if we extend this reasoning, we may say that having a child =/= consenting to feeding it etc.

An interesting point to consider:

Imagine you are a mother and have a fetus, but for the sake of argument, it grows in a glass jar (and you can all see it, to make this more vivid). No, someone comes in at night and poisons the fetus and then stabs it. Cameras catch the guy, he admits to it, he obviously and undeniably did it. Now, what is his charge? Murder or mere violation of property ("raw materials", eh?)? To spice this up with some rhetoric, the mother had a dream of a bright future for this pile of flesh which would eventually become a person with hopes and aspirations.

This is not to be taken as a definitive argument against abortion, just something to think about.

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"The important question is "where do rights begin." Rights do not begin at conception, but only at an indeterminate level of human development, once a human is capable of rational, deliberative discourse. Then the human can assert his rights."

 

Murder of a child not beeing able to care for himself than is not murder. And that is ridicolous.

 

 

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 implies that they have the right to induce her to deliver it alive even though that entails aggression against her body. This is clearly incompatible with liberal principles.

 

You are wrong, the child is human an it has the rigth to live. It will not harm a woman to bear and give birth to a child. If she know she will get hurt she should something before agreeing to sex. And that does not hurt he owning herself in anyway. Still if she  consented to have sex she has to stick to that decision. It was her, who consented and if that gives the base for new life he has to keep this life. No argument of ownership will heal that.

The decison was done before the sex, the other things are "follow-ups". It's fully compatible to liberal principles, she decided to have sex she have to bear (literally) the consequences.  What you asking is not liberal, it means the life of a child does not count. That's clearly incompatible with liberal principles.

 

 

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Wheylous replied on Mon, Jul 18 2011 8:21 AM

^ But what if she doesn't know the sex-baby connection?

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Consequence of sex =/= Obligation to provide charity

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DD5 replied on Mon, Jul 18 2011 3:51 PM

Friedrich Dominicus:
You are wrong, the child is human an it has the rigth to live. It will not harm a woman to bear and give birth to a child. If she know she will get hurt she should something before agreeing to sex.

Every one of these sentencesabove  relies on a false premise.  3 assertions and 3 fallacies.  Here's why:

 

1.  Humans do not have a right to live under all circumstances according to libertariansims.

2.  It can harm her big times.  There is a cost to carrying the child, cost to delivering it, and both always pose a risk to her health.  Before the advent of Capitalism and Cesarian section, the fate of the mother (and child) were always in doubt.

3.  And if there is no consent, i.e., rape?  Is the fetus not human then?  It follows from your reasoning that this point of consent isn't even relevant.

 

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Clayton replied on Mon, Jul 18 2011 3:58 PM

To emphasize your point DD5, we can rephrase the position that a woman can be compelled to bring a child to term thusly: A woman does not completely own her own body. This is a flat contradiction of the principle of self-ownership.

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Bill replied on Mon, Jul 18 2011 4:48 PM

 

She can remove it without harming it

I've considered this before. Can she really? Because it's not a longshot from there to say that a mother may neglect her child the same way (not feed it). And unless we are willing to go into that territory (which I wouldn't mind discussing, mind you), then this argument is not correct.

 Wheylous 

Yes I think the line of thought that she has no obligation to keep the child alive in the case of an abortion, which would now be termed premature labor induction or whatever, also leads to the issue of her not having a positive legal obligation to her child without a contract. Whether I agree with this idea and that line of reasoning idk, but I am interested in understanding the implications if I lean that way. My first argument for it is if she is going to be a neglectful mother she was probably messed up in the first place. Can any amount of law force her or the husband to want to care for her child? I doubt it and if you could would they be good parents? probably not if they were willing to neglect their child. Most people who take care of their children love them and want to care for them. Why would that be any different in a libertarian society? There would also be instances where they could make contractually binding statements to the child and then it results in their having to take care of them. In the case of physical abuse though she is violating the child's right to property by harming their body directly. Murder would also be prosecutable in this instance. I also think every child has the right to run away and find new parents or a new place to reside. Coupled with the ability to find a job, they could concievable take care of themselves.  Feral children can live with wild animals for instance, they cannot speak, but they live. In the world where children run away and group up they could form little collectives and be little adults. There would be an obvious demand for private charity to take in these kids and send them to school. 

 

I am interested in what everyone has to say.

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Wheylous replied on Tue, Jul 19 2011 4:37 AM

This is an exciting discussion, because it's not one which most people would have.

I like what you are saying.

There has been the idea that "it takes a village to raise a child", right? Well, either 1) it was never that way 2) it used to be that way. I assume 2 as I continue in my post (please tell me if my assumption is invalid). If it used to be that way, then it has now changed. Aha! Then social expectations of rearing children have changed! Thus, since the village may be absolved of its responsibilities toward the child, then so may the family. It's just a transition in societal beliefs. I am developing this stream of thought not to provide a libertarian argument, but to try a moral justification of child neglect. The roadblock to libertarianism is often morality (perceived), so if we can get that out of the way, we can then begin a rational discussion.

Ok, so assuming my #2 is correct, then it seems that the concept of the family and obligations to children are a tradition and not a natural and all-powerful law (I use natural law as analogous to natural rights. Natural rights cannot be taken away; hence natural law would be some sort of obligation you are ultimately forced to perform). So if the family unit is not a natural obligation but a societal construct, then child neglect is allowable and abortion without harming the fetus is also allowable. We just need to figure out whether my assumption 2 is correct ;)

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1.  Humans do not have a right to live under all circumstances according to libertariansims.

When   not? You can not deny anyone his/her live, but in the case he/she threatens your live. Nothing else can be a reason to violate the right to live for anyone.

 

2.  It can harm her big times.  There is a cost to carrying the child, cost to delivering it, and both always pose a risk to her health.  Before the advent of Capitalism and Cesarian section, the fate of the mother (and child) were always in doubt.

That is true and I wrote one should  be aware of this before having consent sex. If she does not want the baby the can do contraception. If she know being in danger to give birth of a children, then she might opt for an permanent sterilisation. The risk today of diying in develped country is very low. And she could even get the baby without laboring and never  ever have to seen it. If she might have a look , she might turn her mind....

 

3.  And if there is no consent, i.e., rape?  Is the fetus not human then?  It follows from your reasoning that this point of consent isn't even relevant.

This is the only  thing which really can be a reason.  In this case I would not object.

 

the line is pretty clear to me. Consent sex -> bear the child. Like it or not.

We are here in a field which we can not find any agreement. It's the defiinition of what rights the unborne has. If you say none, then you're reasoning is ok. If i say yes it has the right, then my reasoning is sound.

You can  not say she is "helpfless". She has a choice (at least in developed countries). If he does not have the choice then this changes everything dramatically.

I'm fully aware that my positon can not be envforced and in fact I won't vote for it. But I'm fully sure that the unborne has the right to live. If I think that I can speak for it and I can ask the unsure mother to think about it also. We should make it easier to adopt children. Even to compensate the mother for bearing the children. We should not compensate for any abortoin. It's here body in this case and she should beare the costs for keeping it as she like.

I can also not see why any right would be violated if she took the money, give birth and vanishes. She would be happy the adopting parents would be happy and the little one would be alive. What's the harm in that for anyone? None. So we have a win /win /win situation in the case for life and a terrible loss in case two... I know what I prefer. And if any woman ever should be in doubt, she may call me I'd help as good as I could. I'd even try to adopt the child.  Feel free to ask the same and pay for the abortion....

 

 

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Clayton replied on Tue, Jul 19 2011 11:31 AM

1.  Humans do not have a right to live under all circumstances according to libertariansims.

When   not? You can not deny anyone his/her live, but in the case he/she threatens your live. Nothing else can be a reason to violate the right to live for anyone.

You just granted the truth of the proposition yourself... at least in the circumstance that someone is threatening your life, you have the right to take their life. Hence, the right to live is not unqualified.

2.  It can harm her big times.  There is a cost to carrying the child, cost to delivering it, and both always pose a risk to her health.  Before the advent of Capitalism and Cesarian section, the fate of the mother (and child) were always in doubt.

That is true and I wrote one should  be aware of this before having consent sex. If she does not want the baby the can do contraception. If she know being in danger to give birth of a children, then she might opt for an permanent sterilisation. The risk today of diying in develped country is very low. And she could even get the baby without laboring and never  ever have to seen it. If she might have a look , she might turn her mind....

 

The question at hand is whether the father or other persons have a legitimate right to use force to compel her to carry the child after she has changed her mind. Contraception is irrelevant because the question at hand regards a woman who is already pregnant. While I cannot say with certainty what the law would be, I can say that you're simply ignoring the arguments that a pregnant woman could make against the use of force being applied against her in order to compel her to carry a child she does not want to carry any longer.

3.  And if there is no consent, i.e., rape?  Is the fetus not human then?  It follows from your reasoning that this point of consent isn't even relevant.

This is the only  thing which really can be a reason.  In this case I would not object.

Which just goes to show how arbitrary your position is. In fact, if I were a lawyer for a pregnant woman wanting to get an abortion and being sued by you trying to stop her, I would use this line of questioning in cross-examination to prove that your position is not principled but merely a matter of arbitrary pronunciation.

the line is pretty clear to me. Consent sex -> bear the child. Like it or not.

But you don't get to decide the law, do you?

We are here in a field which we can not find any agreement. It's the defiinition of what rights the unborne has. If you say none, then you're reasoning is ok. If i say yes it has the right, then my reasoning is sound.

You can  not say she is "helpfless". She has a choice (at least in developed countries). If he does not have the choice then this changes everything dramatically.

I'm fully aware that my positon can not be envforced and in fact I won't vote for it. But I'm fully sure that the unborne has the right to live. If I think that I can speak for it and I can ask the unsure mother to think about it also. We should make it easier to adopt children. Even to compensate the mother for bearing the children. We should not compensate for any abortoin. It's here body in this case and she should beare the costs for keeping it as she like.

I can also not see why any right would be violated if she took the money, give birth and vanishes. She would be happy the adopting parents would be happy and the little one would be alive. What's the harm in that for anyone? None. So we have a win /win /win situation in the case for life and a terrible loss in case two... I know what I prefer. And if any woman ever should be in doubt, she may call me I'd help as good as I could. I'd even try to adopt the child.  Feel free to ask the same and pay for the abortion....

These paragraphs suggest to me that you don't even understand what the topic of discussion actually is. This is not a question about the morality, decency or social stigma of abortion. This is a question of whether an interested party may rightfully threaten or use force to compel a pregnant woman to carry a child after she has decided she no longer wants to carry it. That is the issue.

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Seraiah replied on Tue, Jul 19 2011 4:50 PM

Bill
This is your best arguement I think. Putting someone in harms way. Do you think this emplies a positive obligation to provide for another person till they can be removed from your property. Example, person shows up at your house, you invite them in. Then you ask them to leave for any reason you want. They then must leave, but there is a snow storm and its below zero and they have no coats able to protect them from the snow and cold. Am I obligated to hold them on my property, feed, shelter, and maintain their health until the storm subsides and the temperature returns to normal? What if their use of your property cost you dearly financially and in resources, such as having to choose between eating yourself or feeding them? Maybe they are a smoker and you have a severe alergy to smoke (your throat closes up and you die style)? Do you still have to maintain them?


As I've said previously, it doesn't make any logical sense to force someone to exchange their own life for anothers. Well, unless it was expressly contracted that the person intends to do that.

It's an interesting question concerning when a person can expel a guest, but I do not see how it's relevant to my thesis. I have posited that whether or not the baby was intentional (Whether or not the baby was "invited in" to the womb.) the mother has an obligation to the child. The basis of this obligation follows from the non aggression principle: that no person can legitimately initiate force against another individual. A baby is created into the womb, and has made no contract (implied or literal.) with the mother, the baby is therefore entirely innocent in the womb and has not aggressed nor is the baby capable of aggressing. For the mother to expel the child, the mother must aggress.

A person does have a positive obligation to avoid doing harm under certain rare circumstances. See my opening post for examples.

Live_Free_Or_Die
Consequence of sex =/= Obligation to provide charity

Charity =/= a positive obligation to avoid doing harm.



MaikU
But fetus isn't even a CHILD, for fuck's sake.

Whether or not the fetus is a child is not important, whether the fetus is a human being or not is important. For you to posit that a fetus is not a human being you should provide evidence where one organism changes into a human being.

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The child has the right to live. If the woman decides against it, then there will be no way to enforce her bearing the child, so be it. Let her pay the abortion herself, any doctor should have the right to deny the "wished" treatment and of we go. I will  not enforce anything but it's clear: She aborts, she kills. And that clearly is a fact. She should make her  peace about killing with whomever.

 

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MaikU replied on Wed, Jul 20 2011 8:18 AM

You have to define what is "human being" first. You didn't or I probably missed it. Could you point it? Because to me child equals human being. That's why I don't believe that parents can own kids. They become self owners the day they born.

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)

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Wheylous replied on Wed, Jul 20 2011 11:53 AM

For the mother to expel the child, the mother must aggress.

How  is that aggression?

That's why I don't believe that parents can own kids. They become self owners the day they born.

That touches on my argument and point for discussion above. Thus, parents have no more obligations to their children than they do to anyone else?

I was thinking of this and came to the conclusion that "grounding" for example, can then legally considered kidnapping/imprisoning. Many of the things parents do traditionally would be illegal.

 Of course, children would choose to sign a contract with parents to actually allow them to do this. That is, IF they could reaosn out this whole thing rationally. But what about babies? When they are crawl away from their cradel and the parent puts them back, is that kidnapping?

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jul 20 2011 11:56 AM

Many of the things parents do traditionally would be illegal.

Which should be a hint that there's something wrong with this conception of law. This is one of the reasons I reject the unqualified NAP. NAP fundamentalism leads to all sorts of absurdities when applied to the human family.

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Which should be a hint that there's something wrong with this conception of law. This is one of the reasons I reject the unqualified NAP. NAP fundamentalism leads to all sorts of absurdities when applied to the human family.

I agree. There is a deep disgust that comes over me when politicians, philosophers, arm chair people etc start cavilerly talking about abortion or things of that nature. When the words "ownership", "commodity", and "objectification" , and "nothing but" are thrown around in a cultural vaccume like that, there is nothing but the deepest revultion that strikes me. I hope it is a different language that is trying to go beyond it's own bounds of some logical void and into the realm of real human experience. Maybe not much can be said about such things. But I think this Tolstoy War and Peace quote may be something pretty good to reflect on for this site, the fact that it is about Germans makes it all the more amusing:

"Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion— science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing, and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth— science— which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."

"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann

"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence"  - GLS Shackle

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Wheylous replied on Thu, Jul 21 2011 1:39 AM

Then how do you qualify the NAP?

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Clayton replied on Thu, Jul 21 2011 11:59 AM

Then how do you qualify the NAP?

Through legal dispute. The NAP is a summary of when force is justifiable under most circumstances: if you started it, it's your fault but if the other guy started it, then you're just defending yourself. The problems arise with the corner cases - family and children are where this is easiest to see, in my opinion. The most general method for deciding whether a particular use of force was justifiable or not is through legal dispute (verbal argument). In other words, there is no magical principle that sums up in a sentence or paragraph the final criterion for whether the use of force was justified or not in every dispute and the role of law in society is to continually fill in and flesh out the exact criteria for the legitimate use of force.

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No one likes the idea of killing unborn people or the industry that surrounds the murder of unborn people.

To the contrary, many do not care, including me.

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