That’s ridiculous. A single cell with human DNA? So if I take a cheek swab for DNA testing, the cells on the stick have rights, etc.?
(And who’s this “we” you speak of?)
Bottom line is you think that the child does not have rights as a human being. You think it is akin to a tumor, as if the consequence of the persons action resulted in a thing that has no positive potential or inherent rights, but is a nusance to the host. All these logical fallicies you bring up are determined by your pre-concieved definitions and concepts regarding what this child is or is not. No analogy is perfect - you were the one who tried to equate (or agreed with) a child in the womb with a tumor as if getting rid of a tumor was the same as or like getting rid of child. I think the physiological, moral, and rational aspects of it being a human are against you and your argument for abortion. But we can agree to disagree and move on.
Whether it does or not is irrelevant. What IS relevant is that the woman DOES have rights. The physiological, moral, and rational aspects of this are all against you.
Not if the child has rights to. She does not have the right to murder it because it is her womb in which the child resides in - as to no fault of its own but actually that effect was caused by the woman.
I’ve actually come to a similar conclusion. Killing the child before you remove it ought to be considered murderous, but the woman still has a choice over whether or not to remove the fetus, since she is not indebted to house it. If the child dies through removal, that’s a consequence of it’s non-compliance in leaving her premise (granted it doesn’t have any ability to comply). I think the main reason they kill it now is so that it doesn’t feel the pain from the abortion, but preemptive killing is never justified.
OK, why don’t we try some deductive style logic…
if at the very point of ‘life’ in its most liberal definition the ‘child’ has all the rights of a born human being then…
- if the mother drinks, smokes or does any behaviour that is proven to put the well-being of the ‘child’ at risk, then that mother is guilty and should be convicted of:
-
assault?
-
attempted murder?
-
criminal negligence?
-
what???
the point is, as I can see it, is that abortion IS the killing of a human LIFE - not a human being. It IS still killing but NOT murder IMHO. BUT abortion is NOT wrong because unless you agree with the bullet points above, you agree that the woman is the custodian of that human life and she has final say without being under the scrutiny of the law.
I’m so happy I’m a man and that this is all academic to me and not a choice I would have to face possibly if I was a woman. The frail sex my a**…
Alright, obviously going nowhere with the previous line of argument… try this on for size.
We tend to speak of the unborn as if they were totally new people, but that is not entirely so. The egg, which was fertilized to become the child, is a cell of the woman’s body, with half of her genes… a part of the woman, as much as a blood cell (with no nuclear genes at all!) is a part of the woman. There is no reason to say that this categorically changes when extra DNA is added? The substance is still primarily of the mother? Do you lose ownership of a cell because it is infected by a virus?
Nonetheless, despite being a part of the woman’s body, as much as any other cell, including brain cells, are, what happens then is a new person is forged, but, being derived from a cell that was there all the woman’s life, as a part of the body, one that could be said to have as much of a claim over the body as the mother does. This person, albeit in a dormant state for many years, nonetheless has just as much claim as brain cells do.
A bit messy, but, there you go. The person that was the egg is as much a part of the body, and has as much claim to it, as the mother does. Once they separate, they become truly individuated, but until then, ownership must be shared, and neither the mother nor anyone else has the right to force the child out before the natural course of things does so.
To clarify a bit: what I’m saying is that conception is not truly the creation of a new person, but the division of one person into two, both with claims to the body.
Well, that’s where you go off the rails. No individual cell has any rights over the body. Even whole collections of cells - my right arm has no rights, etc.
Your right arm is not an individual person, but the fertilized egg is. If no individual cell has rights over your body, why does an aggregate of cells have rights over your body?
Well, obviously. But the woman didn’t exist before the sperm and egg united either. In fact, the sperm and egg uniting STARTED her life.
First, a fertilized egg is certainly not “a person”; and second, you weren’t talking about a fertilized egg anyway; you said “The egg […] is a cell of the woman’s body […] a part of the woman, as much as a blood cell (with no nuclear genes at all!) is a part of the woman. {B}eing derived from a cell that was there all the woman’s life, as a part of the body, one that could be said to have as much of a claim over the body as the mother does” - i.e., you’re saying that blood cells and unfertilized eggs (that have been there “all the woman’s life”) have as much right to control her body as “she” does.
There is common ground – somewhat – but most people are missing it by discussing arbitrary scientific beliefs.
To the anti-abortion crowd: the only libertarian power you have is ostracism. You should do well to harness that power.
Forget about discussing the definition of murder, human life, conception, consciousness, etc. because there is no proof that murder is morally wrong.
Thus, if you object to abortion, all you can do is shun people who support it. You should object to your money being used to fund abortions. You should object to your money being used to fund a coercive state that supports a police force which provides protection to abortionists. Ultimately, the only right you have is to prevent abortions from occuring on your own property. No more and no less.
What? Murder is simple to prove as immoral.
If you propose that murder is not morally wrong, then it must be morally right. I’ll just take this straight from Stef’s book: whereby two people are in a room.
“If murder is morally good, then clearly refraining from murder is immoral. Thus the only chance that Bob and Doug have to be moral is in the instant that they simultaneously murder each other. Physicially, this is impossible of course - if they both stand and grip each other’s throats, they will never succumb to strangulation at exactly the same moment. If bob dies first, his grip on Doug’s throat will loosen, thus condemning Doug to the status of immorality until such a time as he can find another victim. Because Bob dies first - and thus cannot continue to try murdering Doug, - Bob’s death renders him more immoral than Doug’s murder.”
and later:
“Murder cannot be morally neutral, since morally neutral judgments or actions cannot be forcibly inflicted upon another, and murder by definition is forcibly inflicted opun another.”
I recommend you read his book on ethics, and until you do, avoid comments like “there is no proof that murder is morally wrong.”
Edit: Also out of curiosity, what do you find to be immoral? Or for you there is no such thing as immorality? How do you then (if you do at all) argue against theft, murder, etc. ?
So the woman had sex, a sperm made impact with an egg inside her and suddenly she existed? That’s awesome.
But all that doesn’t prove morals exist in the first place. You’ve simply stated that if morals exist, this is how they must logically be justified, but someone who rejects a morality would be exempt from the argument.
Not really. You can remove any cells you wish to remove. So this does not really help your argument, at all. The mother’s consciousness is already in control of her body. Any newly formed consciousness is thus a trespasser, whether or not it stems (in part) from her body.
-Jon
I was not trying to prove the existence of morality. I was saying that within any self-consistent theory of morality, murder is invariably immoral.
Charles, in saying that there is no way to prove murder as morally wrong, in no way indicated that he rejected morality alltogether. Of course, if he now indicates that he rejects morality alltogether, my previous argument would indeed become moot. Please do not strawman me.
Edit: love the sig though 
Even if. And no one is murdering at all.
So–why do you believe the woman has no right to control her womb when she’s pregnant? Why are you special pleading?
No, it couldn’t. The zygote/fetus is gestating, and not part of the selfsame woman.