[Abortion Thread] (YET ANOTHER POLL!) Taking measure.

[Telconi]

In some situations, maybe yes. In other situations (as where the fetus presents a direct threat to the life/safety of the host), probably not.

What makes the fetus have a right to use anything against anyone's will? Assuming the fetus is a full grown person, would we say that this person has the right to use other's to stay alive?

We permit children to so things we do not permit adults tho...

[Menassa]

What makes the fetus have a right to use anything against anyone's will? Assuming the fetus is a full grown person, would we say that this person has the right to use other's to stay alive?

We permit children to so things we do not permit adults tho...

We permit children to violate people's fundamental rights?

[Menassa]

What makes the fetus have a right to use anything against anyone's will? Assuming the fetus is a full grown person, would we say that this person has the right to use other's to stay alive?

If the fetus can suffer a loss (which, at its stage of development, will primarily be the perception of pain) then it probably holds that others, including the host, are obligated to refrain from inflicting such pain without good reason. This, arguably, means that the fetus has rights against another's person. A "full grown person" has the same rights, for largely the same reasons; you are perfectly within your rights, for instance, to restrain me from randomly punching you in the nose. You have a legitimate claim against my person.

So if I am, against my will, hooked up to a violinist and they are using my body to stay alive. I cannot unhook myself?

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

If the fetus can suffer a loss (which, at its stage of development, will primarily be the perception of pain) then it probably holds that others, including the host, are obligated to refrain from inflicting such pain without good reason. This, arguably, means that the fetus has rights against another's person. A "full grown person" has the same rights, for largely the same reasons; you are perfectly within your rights, for instance, to restrain me from randomly punching you in the nose. You have a legitimate claim against my person.

So if I am, against my will, hooked up to a violinist and they are using my body to stay alive. I cannot unhook myself?

This would depend on the manner in which said hooking occurred, the consequences for the violinist should they be unhooked, the consequences for you if they're not, whether or not another person is available and can take over (possibly voluntarily, or depending on the consequences, possibly not), etc.

EDIT: I mean, at the very least, the phrase "against my will" is super loaded. Do we mean straight up rape, as in you literally just woke up and the violinist is all hooked up and transfusing away? In that case, if you choose to unhook them, I'm totally on your side. Or do we mean one has revoked consent in the process, or right before? In that case I probably can't stop you without running up against the principle of medical autonomy, which exists for all kinds of really good reasons. But if one voluntarily signs up to provide life-saving assistance to some one just to back out at the last minute because you can, I wouldn't be surprised if many think that's at least pretty shitty.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

It would be a moot issue. If you don’t believe in human rights you have no cause to favor either side.

Though in this case the OP focuses on rights enumerated in the US constitution.

The Constitution doesn't guarantee any rights which conflict with another person's rights. It only protects u from the Federal gpvnmt

Yes it does. That 14th amendment thing kinda overrides a LOT of shit.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

So if I am, against my will, hooked up to a violinist and they are using my body to stay alive. I cannot unhook myself?

This would depend on the manner in which said hooking occurred, the consequences for the violinist should they be unhooked, the consequences for you if they're not, whether or not another person is available and can take over (possibly voluntarily, or depending on the consequences, possibly not), etc.

See, that's a no.

The focus is on the entity that is imposing upon the body/resources of another person. You were correct earlier when you mentioned that a born person has the right to defend themselves from your punching them in the face, but your scope is too narrow. Any violation of personal space is one that can be defended against. The fact that somebody hooked a violinist up to ANYBODY without that other person's consent is sufficient grounds for said other person to take serious issue with the arrangement and sever said connection at their sole discretion.

If this kills said violinist, such is sad, but I guess I'll just have to live with my iTunes the way it is.

That being said, the qualifier you presented about post viability is generally a non-issue as the woman has typically already decided to keep the pregnancy if it's gotten THAT far. It'd be rather silly to wait until the fetus gets too big to be easily dealt with to want it gone.

Oh, bee-tee-dub, the point at which it could conceivably feel pain and independent viability are the same point.

[Hakons]

The Constitution doesn't guarantee any rights which conflict with another person's rights. It only protects u from the Federal gpvnmt

Yes it does. That 14th amendment thing kinda overrides a LOT of shit.

The 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law. The law can't override natural rights, because those are protected. The 14th amendment being used to end segregation, for example, wasn't overriding rights, but overturning unconstitutional laws.

[Hakons]

On the "conflict of rights" framing of the issue, it's pretty straight forward to me: every human has the right to life, since life is a natural right given by God. In Americana, this is best expressed in the Deceleration of Independence, which was waged to protect the natural rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Conversely, I don't see in anyway a natural right to abortion, nor can it even be construed from the constitution. In a conflict between the fundamental right to live and the supposed right to rip apart a baby within the womb, it quickly becomes obvious the former is actually a right while the latter isn't anything close to one.

As for the poll, I selected the morals option, since I'm Catholic.

[Telconi]

We permit children to so things we do not permit adults tho...

We permit children to violate people's fundamental rights?

I suppose that's a matter of opinion...

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

Yes it does. That 14th amendment thing kinda overrides a LOT of shit.

The 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law.

Yuh-huh.

The law can't override natural rights, because those are protected.

Filed under 'Shit said about stuff that doesn't exist'.

The 14th amendment being used to end segregation, for example, wasn't overriding rights, but overturning unconstitutional laws.

Yuh huh. And it also helps support self-defense laws, the concept of women not having their bodily autonomy stripped from them the instant a blastocyst happens to weld itself to her uterine wall, and all kinds of other nifty things. And no rights are overridden either! Even if we treated the fetus as a born person (which said amendment rather specifically says a big fat NOPE to), it still wouldn't have the right to occupy the woman's personal space and take nutrition from her without her permission.

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

See, that's a no.

OK.

...The fact that somebody hooked a violinist up to ANYBODY without that other person's consent is sufficient grounds for said other person to take serious issue with the arrangement and sever said connection at their sole discretion.

I've added an edit to my previous post, so I can ask what "against my will" more specifically meant, which I should have done to begin with. I copy and paste the following:

EDIT: I mean, at the very least, the phrase "against my will" is super loaded. Do we mean straight up rape, as in you literally just woke up and the violinist is all hooked up and transfusing away? In that case, if you choose to unhook them, I'm totally on your side. Or do we mean one has revoked consent in the process, or right before? In that case I probably can't stop you without running up against the principle of medical autonomy, which exists for all kinds of really good reasons. But if one voluntarily signs up to provide life-saving assistance to some one just to back out at the last minute because you can, I wouldn't be surprised if many think that's at least pretty shitty.

That being said, the qualifier you presented about post viability is generally a non-issue as the woman has typically already decided to keep the pregnancy if it's gotten THAT far. It'd be rather silly to wait until the fetus gets too big to be easily dealt with to want it gone.

Well, I mean, yeah. Abortion is really only a moral conundrum in those situations where access to safe and plentiful contraception is, for whatever insane reason, made unavailable. Where it is available, I would anticipate most cases of "abortion" amounting to emergency life-saving intervention or natural/spontaneous misfortunes.

Oh, bee-tee-dub, the point at which it could conceivably feel pain and independent viability are the same point.

I've understood that the structures associated with pain perception are thought to begin to establish around 22-24 weeks, which is in the neighborhood of 50% survival chance.

[Hakons]

The 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law.

Yuh-huh.

The law can't override natural rights, because those are protected.

Filed under 'Shit said about stuff that doesn't exist'.

The 14th amendment being used to end segregation, for example, wasn't overriding rights, but overturning unconstitutional laws.

Yuh huh. And it also helps support self-defense laws, the concept of women not having their bodily autonomy stripped from them the instant a blastocyst happens to weld itself to her uterine wall, and all kinds of other nifty things. And no rights are overridden either! Even if we treated the fetus as a born person (which said amendment rather specifically says a big fat NOPE to), it still wouldn't have the right to occupy the woman's personal space and take nutrition from her without her permission.

Lol, natural law exists. It's literally why we have a nation in the first place. Thankfully, natural law is not based upon if people recognize them, they are based off of God.

Having a human develop within the womb is not stripping "bodily autonomy," though strangely those words aren't even in the amendment you're addressing. Killing a human within the womb is overriding the natural right to life, specifically to life that has done no wrong because it quite literally can't yet take any action to do wrong. The 14th amendment clearly defined citizenship, but it also referred to "persons." A person is different than a citizen. The fetus can't ask for permission. It is remarkably unjust to kill a human because they don't meet requirements that are inherently impossible for them to maintain.

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

On the "conflict of rights" framing of the issue, it's pretty straight forward to me: every human has the right to life, since life is a natural right given by God.

If this was true, would there be spontaneous/natural miscarrage? I mean, if God is the ultimate mover, then He's also the most prolific abortionist.

[Telconi]

On the "conflict of rights" framing of the issue, it's pretty straight forward to me: every human has the right to life, since life is a natural right given by God.

If this was true, would there be spontaneous/natural miscarrage? I mean, if God is the ultimate mover, then He's also the most prolific abortionist.

Sure, same way why murder is a violation of our rights despite the fact that people die of strokes.

[Hakons]

On the "conflict of rights" framing of the issue, it's pretty straight forward to me: every human has the right to life, since life is a natural right given by God.

If this was true, would there be spontaneous/natural miscarrage? I mean, if God is the ultimate mover, then He's also the most prolific abortionist.

Abortion isn't a natural disease. If you want me to go into the theology of why there is disease I can, but abortion, the deliberate killing of a baby within the womb, is fundamentally different than the baby dying from natural causes.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

See, that's a no.

OK.

...The fact that somebody hooked a violinist up to ANYBODY without that other person's consent is sufficient grounds for said other person to take serious issue with the arrangement and sever said connection at their sole discretion.

I've added an edit to my previous post, so I can ask what "against my will" more specifically meant, which I should have done to begin with. I copy and paste the following:

EDIT: I mean, at the very least, the phrase "against my will" is super loaded. Do we mean straight up rape, as in you literally just woke up and the violinist is all hooked up and transfusing away? In that case, if you choose to unhook them, I'm totally on your side. Or do we mean one has revoked consent in the process, or right before? In that case I probably can't stop you without running up against the principle of medical autonomy, which exists for all kinds of really good reasons. But if one voluntarily signs up to provide life-saving assistance to some one just to back out at the last minute because you can, I wouldn't be surprised if many think that's at least pretty shitty.

Yes, it might seem pretty shitty. The problem is you don't really know the person's situation. Mayhap they did not know the ramifications of the arrangement? Perchance they got saddled with an unworkable financial burden as part of the arrangement, like for some reason they have to pay extra rent for said violinist. These things might seem trifles to you, but not necessarily so to the person being burdened with a vegetative violinist spliced into their system.

That being said, the qualifier you presented about post viability is generally a non-issue as the woman has typically already decided to keep the pregnancy if it's gotten THAT far. It'd be rather silly to wait until the fetus gets too big to be easily dealt with to want it gone.

Well, I mean, yeah. Abortion is really only a moral conundrum in those situations where access to safe and plentiful contraception is, for whatever insane reason, made unavailable. Where it is available, I would anticipate most cases of "abortion" amounting to emergency life-saving intervention or natural/spontaneous misfortunes.

That's the general idea, yes. With contraception access and a bevy of other policies in place that really don't cost all that much when one considers the savings, the idea of elective abortions would be virtually unheard of. Banning it at that juncture would just be wasteful.

Oh, bee-tee-dub, the point at which it could conceivably feel pain and independent viability are the same point.

I've understood that the structures associated with pain perception are thought to begin to establish around 22-24 weeks, which is in the neighborhood of 50% survival chance.

Yeap. Also known as viability.

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

If this was true, would there be spontaneous/natural miscarrage? I mean, if God is the ultimate mover, then He's also the most prolific abortionist.

Sure, same way why murder is a violation of our rights despite the fact that people die of strokes.

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, He would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

But people dies of strokes.

I suspect the sounder theory is that there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill us with strokes.

[Telconi]

Sure, same way why murder is a violation of our rights despite the fact that people die of strokes.

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, He would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

But people dies of strokes.

I suspect the sounder theory is that there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill us with strokes.

Then what constitutes murder's illegality? If you aren't wronging a person by killing them.

[Hakons]

Sure, same way why murder is a violation of our rights despite the fact that people die of strokes.

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, we would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

Or, there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill me with strokes.

Natural rights are rights that men can't away. When one dies of natural causes, that's not a natural right being broken. When a man kills another man, that's a natural right being broken. God can't violate natural rights because He creates them. As the saying goes, what the Lord gives, the Lord can take away.

This discussion is also pretty much a microcosm of everything wrong with secularists.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

Yuh-huh.



Filed under 'Shit said about stuff that doesn't exist'.



Yuh huh. And it also helps support self-defense laws, the concept of women not having their bodily autonomy stripped from them the instant a blastocyst happens to weld itself to her uterine wall, and all kinds of other nifty things. And no rights are overridden either! Even if we treated the fetus as a born person (which said amendment rather specifically says a big fat NOPE to), it still wouldn't have the right to occupy the woman's personal space and take nutrition from her without her permission.

Lol, natural law exists.

No it doesn't.

It's literally why we have a nation in the first place.

Are we talking the declaration of independence? Those are 'inalienable', not natural.

Thankfully, natural law is not based upon if people recognize them, they are based off of God.

Also known as Mr. McDoesn'tExist.

Having a human develop within the womb is not stripping "bodily autonomy,"

It is if the woman doesn't want it and you won't let her rectify the problem. And yes it is a problem.

though strangely those words aren't even in the amendment you're addressing.

Neither is the right to life. Strange, that.

Killing a human within the womb is overriding the natural right to life, specifically to life that has done no wrong because it quite literally can't yet take any action to do wrong.

It's in a woman's body without her permission. Wrong has been done. Whether it was intentional or not is functionally irrelevant. Trying to claim that it is innocent is also attempting to capitalize on an irrelevant consideration. One does not have time to determine whether a man charging at them with a knife is 'innocent' or 'guilty'. They cannot wait for a tribunal to determine whether protecting oneself in such circumstances is justified. They simply recognize a problem and take steps to either defend themselves or escape. In the case of a woman who does not wish to be pregnant happens to become pregnant (and her actions beforehand aren't really relevant either), she can't exactly run away from the problem. She can only work to defend herself.

To deny her the right to do so is inconsistent.

The 14th amendment clearly defined citizenship, but it also referred to "persons."

Born.

A person is different than a citizen.

Yuh huh. Still doesn't give it special permissions over other persons though.

The fetus can't ask for permission.

Irrelevant.

It is remarkably unjust to kill a human because they don't meet requirements that are inherently impossible for them to maintain.

Not at all. It isn't a violation of the fetus' rights to deny it the support it requires to survive. You may think it 'pretty shitty' but that is unfortunately the way of the world... that your exceedingly non-existent god allegedly created.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

Sure, same way why murder is a violation of our rights despite the fact that people die of strokes.

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, He would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

But people dies of strokes.

I suspect the sounder theory is that there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill us with strokes.

Oooh... I LIKE that argument.

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

Yes, it might seem pretty shitty. The problem is you don't really know the person's situation. Mayhap they did not know the ramifications of the arrangement? Perchance they got saddled with an unworkable financial burden as part of the arrangement, like for some reason they have to pay extra rent for said violinist.

Yes, these are probably all good reasons to consider in defense of the person's medical autonomy.

These things might seem trifles to you...

If you insist, although I know not on what basis, given that I've already conceded that medical autonomy probably prevails.

That's the general idea, yes. With contraception access and a bevy of other policies in place that really don't cost all that much when one considers the savings, the idea of elective abortions would be virtually unheard of. Banning it at that juncture would just be wasteful.

It would be pointless. Which is what makes me crazy about much religious pro-life position. Restricting access to contraception guarantees more abortion. What to make abortion go away? Make it rain contraception across all the land.

Yeap. Also known as viability.

I suppose we can quibble about whether a 50% chance at death (or life, at the 50% mark it's the same) rises to the level of "viability," but meh.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, we would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

Or, there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill me with strokes.

Natural rights are rights that men can't away. When one dies of natural causes, that's not a natural right being broken. When a man kills another man, that's a natural right being broken. God can't violate natural rights because He creates them. As the saying goes, what the Lord gives, the Lord can take away.

This discussion is also pretty much a microcosm of everything wrong with secularists.

What, that we don't accept that 'God' can be a brobdignagian asshole but we can't?

[The Niceties of Normal Moral Constraints]

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, He would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

But people dies of strokes.

I suspect the sounder theory is that there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill us with strokes.

Oooh... I LIKE that argument.

I mean, you know, we can still invent a right to life. All law is a human invention, after all.

[Telconi]

I'm not so sure. If my life is a right given me by God, and I die of a stroke, then it would seem to me that my natural right has been violated. Presumably, if the ultimate mover wished to grant me a right, He would intervene to protect it by preventing the stroke.

But people dies of strokes.

I suspect the sounder theory is that there isn't a natural right to life, given that nature is perfectly happy to kill us with strokes.

Oooh... I LIKE that argument.

So nobody has a right to live, but women have the unalienable right to an empty uterus...