You can only do to the car what your wife consents you can do, and visa versa.
The fetus never consented to anything.
I don’t understand what your point is. I don’t have to get my wife’s permission to gas up the car, I can just do it because we trust each other with the custody of the car. If I wrecked it when I was at fault, she’d be pissed, rightly so.
Oh, so you lose self-ownership in deep sleep, too, eh? When you’ve just been knocked out? How unconscious do you have to be before you lose self-ownership?
OK. Let me start from a few points that most Austrians will agree with.
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Austrian ethics are emprical in nature; this is to say, they deal only with the relationship of actual physical people and objects in relation to one another. They do not try to adress any deeper spiritual truths, even if you hold that such truths exist.
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One of the foundations of Austrian ethics is the principle of self-ownership. However, being materialistic in nature, for Austrian ethics the self can only be identified with the body. Thus, saying that a person owns their own body and that they are a self-owner are equivalent statements.
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There is nothing in Austrian theory that bans joint ownership.
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A person can only has sole ownership of property if they have a prior claim to everyone else who might have ownership.
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The body is the self, so parts of the body are parts of the self. All the current parts of the body contribute to the current selfhood.
Now to the controversy…
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The fertilized egg was a part of the self of the mother. It had, as an inherent aspect of that part of herself, the possibility of dividing into a seperate and individual self. Nonetheless, that potential, that possibility, and its very substance derives as a natural factor of the woman’s self.
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Thus, as a natural expression of that mother’s bodily self, there are now two selves, two owners, in the same body upon conception. The fertilized egg does not aquire new property rights; they are the very same property rights as it had before as an aspect of the mother’s self, except now from the standpoint of a human with a distinct self.
To be sure, conception is a rather unique circumstance. There is no other situation with current levels of science whereby a new human is created. Some seem to want to make it simplistic, like the unborn is an invader and tresspasser, but this is not so. It is a division from the original self, not new, just different than it was before.
Whose we? I never instituted any government to rule over me, nor did I consent to it. Besides, it would be a blatant contradiction. A taxation system that is able to confiscate my property without my consent is securing my rights to property…how exactly? Ergo, the very existence of government violates our rights. You want to defend our rights by violating them? Nice logic there.
Regarding unique human DNA. Don’t cancer cells have unique DNA compared to those surrounding them (not actually sure about this)? Yet I don’t see campaigns for the protection of the cancer cells’ rights. You’re not being consistent I think.
The “Car wrecked” analogy is flawed because it was unintentional. If you went out with a baseball bat and beat the *** out of the car, your wife would be entitled to claim repayment (that is of course if it was really jointly owned).
So if the child is a part-owner of the mother’s body, anything the mother does knowingly and with full intent that goes against the will of the child is an act of aggression on the child’s property.
And then you wake up and start homesteading yourself! [:D]
This all fits perfectly into an explanation for “body snatchers”.
So why doesn’t the baby have a claim to the father too? since it was his sperm.
Once the sperm and the egg meet a unique individual is created. This individual cannot think or act with volition, all it does is undergo cell division (mitosis) for a period of time. so for a that time it could be said to be unowned or It may be owned by the mother, or maybe not. Essentially, though, It would have to be demonstrated that self awareness requires thought before you could say that it’s not a self owned individual.
That aside, it is a unique being. The cells dividing contain a unique DNA, and therefore do not divide according to the mother’s body. It is simply a housed body inside the mother. When a self owning being does emerge, they are unable to act through the mother, they’re not neurologically connected to the mother. There is nothing that would give this person any rightful claim to the mother’s being (other than possibly the umbillical cord, but I’m not sure exactly how much of that tissue belongs to the baby or the mother).
Calling it an invader is simply describing it’s violation from the mother’s standpoint. It’s not an invader, sure, since it never committed an act of invasion. But it is residing within the mother’s property against her will, and that’s why the term “invader” is used.
Hah!
Also, Date-Rapers are totally legit now!
If you are speaking of the United States government, no one would agree with you more that it illegitimate. It has destroyed the purpose we establish government for, securing justice. It has become a source of injustice and a very large source at that. We certainly both would agree that it needs to either be altered drastically so it is not violating justice or abolished altogether. No arguing with you there.
‘We’ is referring to humanity. Two or more people agree to protect each other’s rights: that is government.
If you want to be absolutely scrupulous, most all cells have very slight variations of DNA. This then will deal with the definition of “unique”. Are we calling a car “unique” simply because several atoms are displaced even though to the naked eye it looks identical to every other chevy malibu? Even though it’s form and structure, without the use of an electron microscope, are identical to every other blue chevy malibu? Ask any car dealer and he will call you absurd. Or to say that a malibu which was hit by hail is now a unique car? No: it is a defective car.
Likewise, the definition of “unique” when dealing with human DNA should be approached with similar sensibility.
Oh good.
You just redefined a voluntary contract between two parties as a government. An actual government is a non-existing implicit contract between two parties, one of which did not consent, sign, or even see this contract. i.e. the social contract.
A society is just a group of individuals. A government that rules over individuals that disagree with its rule is illegitimate. Majoritarianism presumes double standards within morality, and is thus invalid.
All I did was a reductio ad absurdum, to try and convince you that it is not DNA that is the source of rights, whether drastically unique or not, but the presence of an independant human consciousness. Unless I misunderstood what you were driving at.
False analogy.
She didn’t. Consenting to have sex IS NOT consenting to be pregnant. STOP using that non sequitur.
How does one have joint ownership of another person, Mr. Universal Communist? And how in the world can you be so warped as to think that the fetus is just a division of the self of the woman when it clearly isn’t and can’t be.
Which shows the woman owns the egg, which is a part of herself.
Which is a non sequitur. Try again.
-Jon
Yes, she can revoke “consent”. Slavery contracts with non-persons are unenforceable nonsense. Boo hoo. Get over it.
-Jon
A rose by any other name. Well, I was defining government according to what I have read:
The Law, Bastiat
Common Sense, Thomas Paine
Declaration of Independence
We may come together to establish government to secure also the rights of our posterity. So it is an institution we have inherited. If you were the posterity of Bill Gates and he passed away, suppose you inherit Microsoft. But if it were not profitable to you, it is your right to alter it or abolish it altogether. No one said you had to keep it.
Likewise, the United States government, a common law trust, is one which we ought to alter or abolish if it is counterproductive to our individual rights.
One other key to this is that it was only instituted to secure the rights to “ourselves and our Posterity.” So if it violates the rights of non-Citizens, that certainly is not desirable but it is not outside of it’s contract. Also, The Constitution was not put on us, but was put on the institution. It’s like any common law trust bylaws. The contract is that which the workers inside of the organization agree to. Not the shareholders or other individuals.
At what point can someone determine that there is consciousness? How does one measure this? If someone is unconscious, does this mean they lose their rights?
I’m inclined to say that a consciousness earns their rights when they can recognise what rights are. This would mean that only human consciousness has rights, but it leaves young children and babies vulnerable… Not really sure on that. Nor have I really formulated any meaningful opinion with regards to rights when becoming unconscious. Hopefully someone else can answer this better 
See this. I don’t agree with it entirely, but it’s a good attempt.
-Jon
Don’t you think that when she consents to having sex she consents to the potential for conception? I clarified that in the following sentences which you did not qoute. She gambled and lost. I did not intend to say that she in the same way consented to being pregnant as she did to having sex - its not as if she had to verbalize it. Her action alone incorperates both aspects. She certainly can be responsible for her primary action and the secondary consequence of that action which is directly related to the first.
If you think nature is the basis for her self-ownership certainly nature is the basis for the dual ownership of the womb as a result of her free will chioce to engage in a natural act that runs the risk of the conception of another human being like her. The child never trespassed it was non-existant prior to conception and its creation was in the womb because of her freewill actions. It is not violating anything. It is co-operating with nature and her choice and now its very life is in danger because she wants to forego the consequence of her action. It has every right to use that womb as she does but when her right to use it results in the death of the child she has committed an act of agression agaisnst the child.