Abortion, and birth control

[TomCollins]

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Does the old man have a right to your kidney?

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No. I'd also have to assume that the old man had no part in the decision as the fetus has no part in the decision of its creation. So assuming the old man didn't know, do you have a right to commit uniniated force against him? I don't believe you do. Just as if a man hits his wife, she does not have the right to hit her daughter, even though aggression was committed against her. In other words, being aggressed against does not give you the right to aggress against innocent 3rd parties.

You have to assume the fetus has rights in this scenario or else there's no reason to bring it up because if the fetus has no rights, the circumstances of its conception don't matter; you can abort it regardless.

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You are missing my point. EVEN IF you grant a fetus full human rights, it's very strange to say that another person has a right to your body AGAINST YOUR CONSENT. Of course this is a moot point if you grant a fetus zero rights.

But the extreme anti-abortionists will argue that even in cases of rape it is morally reprehensible also means that it is morally reprehensible to demand your kidney back from this "innocent" man.

[elwoodblues]

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it's very strange to say that another person has a right to your body AGAINST YOUR CONSENT

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Not really. Hypothetical: there is a set of conjoined twins named Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang have grown to the ripe old age of 48 (combined- Yin is 24 as is Yang [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] .) Aside from being adult conjoined twins, Yin and Yang have other health issues as well. On their 25th birthday, Yin will die if (and only if) Yang is still alive.

Does Yin have a right to kill Yang to preserve his own life?

We would never say that Yin has that right. Yang is an innocent. Yis life has as much value as Yin. The reason that in the abortion context we allow this is that society either believes a fetus to not be alive or consider it a form of life with less value than the mother.

[BluffTHIS!]

Virtually every consensual action we take in life entails repsonsibilites to others, from driving a car to signing a contract to owning and using firearms, or even merely lighting a campfire with the knowledge we are repsonsible not to start a forest fire. Yet with the thing that is at the very essence of humanity, the creation of life itself through sexual generation, we by your views magically have no responsbility by conveniently declaring an unborn fetus not to be a person regardless of its stage of development.

All so that a woman's or a couple's life not be inconvenienced by a birth when there are so many other couples who would count it their greatest joy to adopt that child if the birth parents should not wish to raise it.

And how much difference can there really be then between infanticide committed during the first week of an infant's life and aborting it 1 month earlier?

But all that convenient reasoning rests on the lie that a fetus is not a child, when it draws its nourishment from inside the mother rather than outside as it will later.

How conventient indeed. And how sad.

And if you are going to maintain abortion is OK, then at least have the guts to admit that it is murder as Sklansky maintains. But of course, how then would you be able to live with yourself and maintain your complacent selfish existence?

[vulturesrow]

Consent is implied when you choose to engage in the sexual act, no matter how small the chance of pregnancy occuring is.

[Peter666]

It appears that different states make different rules, and this also applies to countries around the world. There is no universal consistent logic in the application of miscarriage laws as some give undoubtable fetal rights, and others do not.

I myself argue that there is a simple universal principal that applies to abortion from deductive reasoning and using the definition of a human. It does not involve religion at all. But I guess that is a Philosophy forum thing.

[BCPVP]

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You are missing my point.

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No, I understand what your point was. It's just that you're wrong.

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EVEN IF you grant a fetus full human rights, it's very strange to say that another person has a right to your body AGAINST YOUR CONSENT.

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They don't have a "right" to your body, but you don't have a right to kill an innocent party simply because someone else harmed you.

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Of course this is a moot point if you grant a fetus zero rights.

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Of course.

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But the extreme anti-abortionists will argue that even in cases of rape it is morally reprehensible also means that it is morally reprehensible to demand your kidney back from this "innocent" man.

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Demand all you want. But he has no moral obligation to kill himself (nor you to kill him) to give it back.

[elwoodblues]

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But he has no moral obligation to kill himself (nor you to kill him) to give it back.

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Exactly.

[fluxrad]

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They don't have a "right" to your body, but you don't have a right to kill an innocent party simply because someone else harmed you.

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Is it not also the responsibility of the third party to ensure that the object they are getting was not obtained through illegal means? Certainly an old many buying a kidney off the back of a truck in Brooklyn cannot reasonably expect that kidney was legally obtained. Try replacing kidney with stereo - does an individual have a right to an illegally obtained object which they purchased (unbeknownst to them) illegally? The current concensus is no, an individual does not have a right to a stolen good, regardless of how they obtained it. The only reason this is a hairy question is because you're talking about a kidney - which would require not just the initiation of force to remove, but the forced initiation of surgery - an act which is not done in the U.S.

Also - this brings up a somewhat related question: Is coercion equivalent to force? Is saying "do X or I will kill you" considered a forceful act in the classic libertarian view (I can't remember if you're libertarian or anarcho-capitalist). If it is, then where does one draw the line? Is any ultimatum considered force? If not then your notion of an "innocent" third party creates all sorts of problems - namely, the old man can simply say "steal me a kidney/stereo/motor boat or I will kill you." He is then entitled to whatever object he receives simply because he is not the one who actually stole the object.

[OtisTheMarsupial]

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And if you are going to maintain abortion is OK, then at least have the guts to admit that it is murder as Sklansky maintains. But of course, how then would you be able to live with yourself and maintain your complacent selfish existence?

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I wouldn't call abortion OK, but I think it should be legal. See, there is a distinction between legal and moral. Penty of things should be legal that are not moral. And there are a variety of reasons abortion should be legal: ease of application of law, difficulty in proof, social consequences and more.

Furthermore, Sklansky got it wrong. He should have said it was homicide, not murder. There is a distinction there, too. Homicides include accidental killings and self defense killings. Murders are a distinct class of killings - and they do not include the killings, no matter the intent, of animals, plants, fetuses, enemy soldiers in war, etc.

Sklansky's logical connections in these areas is fine; it's just he's got the premises wrong. They're valid, but not strong, arguments.

[BCPVP]

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Is it not also the responsibility of the third party to ensure that the object they are getting was not obtained through illegal means? Certainly an old many buying a kidney off the back of a truck in Brooklyn cannot reasonably expect that kidney was legally obtained.

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This is why I said that the old man would have to have no say in where the kidney came from if the analogy was to be comparable to what we were talking about.

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Also - this brings up a somewhat related question: Is coercion equivalent to force? Is saying "do X or I will kill you" considered a forceful act in the classic libertarian view (I can't remember if you're libertarian or anarcho-capitalist).

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1)Yes, I think coercion is force. If you say "do X or I will kill you", you are forcing someone to do something that is probably against their will.
2)I fairly sure libertarians believe that coercion = force when discussing such matters.
3)I'm a conservative who is leaning more and more libertarian. The last political compass test I took pegged me as a libertarian. I'm definitely not anarcho-capitalist.

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If it is, then where does one draw the line? Is any ultimatum considered force?

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I think so.

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the old man can simply say "steal me a kidney/stereo/motor boat or I will kill you." He is then entitled to whatever object he receives simply because he is not the one who actually stole the object.

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Receiving stolen property (knowingly or at least suspecting, I believe; not sure) is still a crime. And even if the old man did force someone to steal a kidney for him and he had it implanted, that wouldn't prevent him from being arrested.

But I think we're straying away from abortion by bringing up extraneous items like stereos. What I was arguing originally was that you cannot believe abortion is morally wrong yet accept it in cases of rape and incest (which an incredible ~70% of Republicans believe should be the case!).
When talking about whether abortion should be allowed for in cases of rape/incest, you're basically accepting (at least for the sake of argument) that a fetus is life worth protecting. A stereo is not equivalent to a fetus if we accept the above premise.