Yes, he did. See how much fun gainsaying is? Now, do you care to show how he failed?
-Jon
Minus the small problem that all that existed, was an egg. An unfertilized egg. With no claim whatsoever to anything.
-Jon
These two statements contradict each other. If there is no proof that murder is morally wrong, than there is no proof that property ownership is a right.
Murder is wrong because it is theft of one’s property, themselves. If we dont see any thing wrong with murder, than we must not see anything wrong with the communists belief that there is no private property.
Was the egg not a part of the woman, who had the claim over her own body? Or are you claiming that somehow the woman’s self is other than her body, which seems an odd position for atheist thinkers.
It was. To go from there to saying the foetus is part of her, however, is a leap of logic. If you really think it’s part of her, you will agree she has every right to discard it at will. As it is, the egg is nothing but a part of her, with no “claim” over her; actually, it is the thing to which she lays claim. Absent a sperm, there is no entity to speak of but her.
-Jon
I am not saying that it is a part of her, but that it was, and now “she” has two individuals which occupy the same body. One minute, they were one, and now, they are two. Both were altered by the sperm. Because the woman’s egg was previously an aspect of her identity, part of her body, she becomes a being without that egg. Because the woman’s egg was previously an aspect of her identity, part of her body, the egg becomes a being without the rest of the woman. One is small, one is big, but the fact that their identities were divided unequally does not change the fact that it was one identity divided into two, neither of which has a categorical right over the other over the body which that now-divided identity has claim to.
It is not that we do not see anything wrong with murder. We do see murder as wrong. It is that we can not objectively PROVE that murder is wrong to people who do not accept the non-aggression principle. Furthermore, we can not PROVE that murder should be used to label abortion.
So, for the pedantic, I should have said: Ultimately, the only right you have as a libertarian consistent with libertarian principles is to prevent abortions from occuring on your own property. No more and no less.
To put it a different way, the non-aggression principle is a statement of morality and morality is not objective.
If only that were actually true though.
Is that supposed to be an argument, or even a statement?
So even if the child has rights (say to life from the womb as a result of her own action) she would not have an obligation or duty to not murdering it because?
She’s not aborting her womb when she murders the child in it. Why do you believe that a woman has the right to murder a child in the womb when by her freewill actions and pre-knowledge knew she could create a child with the right to use that womb for its life?
Same reason you are. Your principles axioms and concepts are questionable when in relation to this new entity in the womb. You think it to be like a tumor that trespasses. I think if you ask any embryologist you would be laughed at - it is not like a tumor - and I think that it being a human with rights is more in line with accepted scientific facts and ethical duties than your notion of it being like a tumor that viloates some property right.
Ok then, you tell me, when does the baby become a seperate person?
The baby becomes a seperate person at conception, but it is a person with, at least in part, the same body as the mother. Rather, as implied before, like conjoined twins. Ever seen that two-headed girl? Not exactly the same; it’s as if that division happened later in life, but is temporary (eventually they’ll split entirely in two) and one head is smaller.
Ummmm…no. The woman has ownership because she homesteaded herself.
There’s no such thing as the right to life. And she’s not murdering the fetus. And why do you think the woman loses her self-ownership when she’s pregnant?
Except that I’m not. So I must repeat: why are you special pleading?
No they aren’t.
Too bad that she already has prior claim over every part of her body, including unfertilized eggs - which are just that: unfertilized eggs.
-Jon
In this regard does JC’s argument not work against him, in the sense that until the baby homesteads its own body, the two bodies (that of the mother and child) are the same and belong to the mother.
That’s what you say - that has not be proven - it is still up for debate.
Where did I say she loses her self-ownership when she’s pregnant - I don’t think it extends to the child in the womb and since the womb is necessary for life she has a duty to allow it to come to maturity. She was responsible for the child coming to exist in the womb. That existence should have the right to continue to live unhindered by her right to her womb. The sphere of that right now entails a new entity. Her right is in conflict with the right of the child - it is a shared right of the womb.
Here is your special pleading:
Rule: X (Woman) can not kill Y (child in the womb)
x (Jill) is a X (Woman)
x (Jill) is an exception to the rule because she has Z (control of the womb - self-ownership of the womb)
Therefore, x (Jill) the X (Woman) can kill the Y (child in the womb)
Z is irrelevant to whether she is allowed to kill the child.
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You confuse her right of the womb with her right to kill a child in the womb just because it is in the womb.
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The result of this state is of her own fault not the childs. The child is not as you say trespassing.
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She brought life to existence and that life has need of the womb - somthing she allowed of her own free will - now she wants to remove it with the consequence of killing it and violating its rights.
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You fail to see the responsibility of the woman in creating the child in the womb and in so doing creates dual ownership of the womb once conception takes place.
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You attribute false legal and moral language to a thing you liken to a tumor by saying it is trespassing. You do this in order to say it is violating some principle you hold to called self-ownership as if it were a property issue - shortsighted and a bad analogy.
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You fail to see the moral relationship to this person in the womb if it is actually a person with rights - an axiom I am working from and you are denying. This is your right but it is not proven by stating it to be a thing like a tumor or suggesting that even if it is a human it is still ok for her to kill it. That is your position not a proven fact and as such you argue from there. I don’t accept those starting points.
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Scientifically the issue of whether it is a human life at conception is more on my side than yours. As such I think morally she is responsible for it and in violation of its rights as such when she kills it.
Right, bringing us full circle back to Rothbard’s treatment of the matter. All I am seeing here is a regurgitation of the notion that somehow the foetus has the right to be an uninvited parasite.
-Jon
Right. And in doing so, the latent individual that was the egg did so as well, as it was part of the same person.
Oh, the unfertilized egg homesteaded part of the thing it’s already part of? Are you serious?
-Jon