I know it’s a divisive issue in politics, but I’d like to know the arguments/views of the users here because I’m having a hard time making my mind up. I used to be 100% pro-life, but reading Rothbard’s work (the chapter “Children and Rights” in Ethics of Liberty, most importantly) made me unsure. Then I read Block’s paper on “evictionism” (the separation of the act of eviction and the act of killing during an abortion) and decided that that was perhaps the most logical position, yet then I read something by Kinsella (I think) using this analogy: If you invite someone aboard your ship for dinner and go out to sea, by the nature of the situation you may not decide to evict them until you reach shore and safety. Similar with abortion.
There are plenty of utilitarian-based arguments that, along with concepts of individual sovereignty, maintain the view that an existing individual’s will prevails over that of an unborn, work-in-progress fetus. But there’s a much older deontological ethics that steadfastly holds that all human life is sacred, regardless of its stage in life and including in the womb (a further study of the metaphysics of Aquinas’ and even Jacques Maritain would bring to light a further conviction of Being as already inherent in its pre-actual potency). The empirical acceptance that life begins at conception was a given throughout the centuries, until the politicization of it in the 60’s - at which point it migrated over to becoming an “individual rights” and utilitarian-based (ie. subjectively-determined, as in “situation ethical” and “morally relativistic”) position. This of course has resulted in much writhing of logic - to the point where in some places it’s okay to have a 3rd trimester partial-birth abortion, even though the baby could actually be increasingly viable outside the womb. Finally, to say that the state ought not to have a say over one’s body (and therefore pregnancy too), is a totally different question from whether one has a moral right to end an abortion - but the two have been thrown together to serve the desired secular-based agenda. I hope this helps.
I view the unborn baby as a stage in human development. We are constantly changing through our lives; from embryo to baby to adolescents to puberty, adulthood, old age and death(to name a few). Once the sperm enters the egg, it creates the begining stages in human life. The egg and sperm by themselves do not grow and will never be anything else.The baby consists of both the man (sperm) and woman (egg), thus the unborn baby is actually niether the mother nor the father, but a whole new being, with his/her own natural Rights. The mother has the duty of seeing the child into the world through perhaps the most vital stages of human development, which creates the amazing mother child bond. A mothers body temp will actually change to suite her babie’s. I could go on about this and extend further into similar subjects ie; the nature of the family unit, and the socialist need to break it down to make the state the family, thus reigning in loyalty to the state etc. My basic opinion is that abortion is used as a way of escaping responsibility for ones actions, much like welfare when bad life choices are made, except on a much more repulsive and barbaric level.
I am relatively uneducated on this issue, so I hope I don’t offend anyone. My personal view (which I might note is open-minded to different ideas) is that the fetus becomes a person once it leaves to womb. Thus, an abortion could only be performed if it were still in the mother’s womb, meaning that partial-birth abortion would be illegal.
Essential reading on the subject includes Judith Thomson’s essay, “A Defense of Abortion,” and Joel Feinberg’s essay, “Abortion and the Conflict of Claims.” You might also want to check out my own brief foray into the issue.
Abortion is tricky. I’ll just mention the constitutional view. The Federal Government has no place in the abortion issue and shouldn’t take a side. The 10th amendment should rule supreme here and it should be an issue for the states’ governments and the people therin.
Personally, I believe in natural rights and I believe the unborn are entitled to life so I guess that would make me ‘pro-life.’ However, the unborn never asked me to be its guardian, I have no right to determine what a woman can do with her unborn child. I am even hesitant to grant this decision to the state government because its still government. I think the best solution for abortion is respecting private property. By this I mean clinics.
If a doctor at clinic A refuses to perform an abortion than thats his right and no governmental authority should force him to do so. If the doctor at clinic B decides to perform the abortion then the government can’t stop him from doing so. Its a ‘my clinic, your clinic’ issue to me. Of course, I’m all for repealing Rowe v Wade because this is the Federal government taking a side on the issue and whats even worse taxpayers are forced to subsidize abortions.
Not sure the reason for the struggle to grasp unalienable truths when it’s evident even to a child this is wrong. “Thou shalt not kill”- pretty obvious stuff. Those who struggle with this ought to spend less time self-absorbed in mental acrobatic bantering and use simple language appropriate to the situation.
“It’s wrong.” We know that. Situation ethics, reletavism and looking for the loophole- “the” case in which to suggest the abominable isn’t wrong is the intellectual equal to suggesting Murder is AOK because if I were on fire and you had a gun I’d wish like hell you’d shoot me (and I doubt you’d be “judged” for it). The few exceptions do not justify the practice of robbing a human the opportunity to develop fully and live- not to mention how heartless it is to allow another to suffer in late stage pre-birth which is undeniably sickening.
To start with- you have to believe in God. Recommend “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. He uses logic to arrive at how illogical it is to be an atheist. An agnostic is an atheist whose lazy or who doesn’t want “to feel” the culpability of rejecting God.
Bottom line- unless you are 23 and still struggling with whether you were meant to huddle in the fetal positon or actually do something- this is a total waste of time. Those who want to call the shots- who loathe being subordinate to God- struggle with this and a whole lot more in life. It’s a heck of a lot easier to arrive at some conclusions, turn the page and get on with it. It’s a beautiful day! Stop living in your heads!
I feel the idea of whether the baby is human or not is moot. The fact is if people do not want to run the risk of having a child they should not have sex. Otherwise they are accepting the risk and thus accepting the consequences. Even if the fetus live is equivalent to a cat’s life, it still is a innocent 3rd party, and should not have to pay the ultamite price simply because someone else wants to escape responsiblity.
However, even more so, it has human DNA, it so I see it as a human… In all stages.
good pints by Steve G. (do I know you and Tuneman (Inquisitior, it took my codger mind a moment to figure out “For What It’s Worth” - but don’t be confused, just start with that cited book - and then dare to try understanding “The Levels Of Knowledge” by J. Maritain to remove all doubt)
Of course that’s what it is: “eviction.” The woman spreads her legs and sternly orders the baby to leave. When the baby declines, that’s when the abortionist helpfully gouges him or her out. That’ll teach that baby not to trespass again.
This is confusing and complex only because the anti-human propaganda of the government and its attendant popular culture is so pervasive.
I admire your inquisitiveness (I mean it) … and suggest reading JM’s along with the economic ones - being that it’s along a different level of apprehension and path of knowledge (could make it complementary, especially a work like Human Action for instance)
I see myself leaning this way, but there are still problems with this position (no pun intended). No contraceptive is 100% effective, so there is always some slight risk of pregnancy when using them. The real problem, though, occurs when a woman is impregnated through rape or incest. If a woman didn’t voluntarily agree to have sex, she clearly did not intend to have a child, or even accept the risk of having one. One could say that she should be supported somehow, by the community or by the rapist, and then the baby could be put up for adoption, but this seems like a punishment for the victim, and can cause confusion with the rapist’s “rights” to fatherhood (although that can be mitigated).
Another problem occurs when a woman’s health is at risk from the pregnancy. Who has the greater right (and thus the medical priority) to survive in such cases? Can we have a case where human rights are in conflict with each other?
Oh there’s no doubt that there is still risk when using contraceptives… People need to be albe to accept that slight risk also…Simply doing something that decreases the chance doesn’t escape them from responsibilty. I find it schocking this argument isn’t brought up more often…People have these grand debates and write books on where life begins, and how can you justify intruding on a womans body, etc., etc… When really isn’t it a question of accepting the consequences of a risk that you took?
Practically I think that we should first worry about 99.9% of the cases, then worry about rape and inscest. But of course philisophically this is the touchy area. Although its really tough to tell a rape victim to have to keep a child, I gotta still think about that being, and how it shouldn’t have to pay for what the man did to the woman… Its awful that a rape has occured, however she can stop a murder from happening…
Ya this I don’t know about…I guess the mother has priority… since the child (albiet inadvertantly) is risking the health of the woman. I don’t really know how one could justify this… What’s your view on this?
I believe pro-creation, parenthood, abortion, etc. transcend libertarianism because it forces contradictions. This is the contradiction: a child is the product of a parent’s labor. Therefore, the child’s self-ownership is denied and he is the property of his parents.
In libertarian circles, that argument does it for me.
As a proponent of the non-aggression principle, I believe you have the right to defend the defenseless from an act of aggression even without a specific request from the unborn. Just be ready to justify it or go to battle. I believe an abortion is an act of aggression. Unfortunately, I believe it is usually a losing battle to oppose abortion in our current state of affairs.
I believe you are correct when you say that the rape victim did not intend to have a child. I believe it is unfortunate that the rape victim’s plight is so much affected by how everybody else in the community treats her. Maybe that should change.
If the woman was raped by a golden god and her unborn child was believed to be the salvation of the world thus rendering her community to become The Chosen People, everybody (including herself) would consider her nine month burden to actually be a blessing. I think the world would be a better place if more and more people saw every single child as a blessing no matter how that child was conceived. We seem to grant importance to other things in life.
Yes, there is a conflict of human rights but only if you define the fetus as human. No, there is no conflict of human right if you refuse to define the fetus as human. Where you draw the line is arbitrary and a personal choice because a new-born child can not survive on its own.
I did not find that satisfactory because, as it hinges on the case for individual rights, it does not account for the fact that a child’s survival depends on the arbitrary ideas of others too.
Wait why don’t we have the right to tell the woman what to do with her body in this case. I thought most of us were for complete freedom as long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedom of another. And I don’t see how its not a human…it has human dna..what is it then, what species?
Of course, this doesn’t cover rape, but, I’ll say again, why shouldn’t we just tell woman: if you don’t want a child, don’t have sex.
and Tuneman (Inquisitior, it took my codger mind a moment to figure out “For What It’s Worth” - but don’t be confused, just start with that cited book - and then dare to try understanding “The Levels Of Knowledge” by J. Maritain to remove all doubt)