If a woman who owns her body cannot expel what is living off her parasitically inside her without being subjected to violence or thereat of violence from even [apparently] some confused libertarians who are ready to beat her, imprison her, or kill her (or the doctor who provides the service) then she and the doctor are prisoners, hostages, slaves, victimes, or whatever you want to call it, of such aggressors.
The fetus does not act in the praxeological sense of the term, thus he can enjoy no such equivalent rights as to the mother. The child is at the mercy of the mother, period. God (for all you religious people) has put the child in this situation and created this moral dilemma. If she is wrong, then her final judgment is before God, and not before you!
Most of you people relying on the fact that the fetus is a human life are missing the point. NAP is not about protecting human life, but about protecting property rights. Not all human lives enjoy the same level of property rights always and everywhere.
This is also spot on. And this is why we end up in the debate over what is or is not, in fact, human life. Such debate is a waste of time. The real question is who has the right to act unimpeded, the mother who wants to abort or those who want to compel the mother to give birth to the child alive?
I think you are objecting to a word. The analogy of trespassing is a good analogy for the concepts of right/remedy, trespassing against a right and the proper remedy for trespass.
let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun -Aristotle
The abortion issue hasn’t changed in a couple thousand years. When does life begin? The things that have changed, are public opinion on breeding purity, killing deformed children, etc. Abortion has always been around with varying degrees of public support in each civilization.
Since there is no compelling evidence to settle the question when life begins no system of law is able to opinion a remedy for a trespass against something that can not be defined. Who has standing to argue on behalf of something that can not be defined? Since God is not filing claims on behalf of unborn persons, the law can only provide remedies to disputes between men, women, and those who trespass against the rights of men or women.
This is the most ridicilous I ever have read. I also wrote we’ll never have any way to stop a woman on an abort. But what we can do is not support here in any way. That’s easy. She aborts on her own expense. Easy. If someone want to see the child live he/she may bear the expensed of giving birth to this human. No one ever pro abortion can deny this child his right to live. And you know exactly that you can’t escape this. And this is what makes you so angry.
Angry? No anger here. I understand and sympathize with the urge to say that a woman should have to bear the child if the father and/or other persons want it to live. The problem is that the woman’s body is her property and to say that the other relatives have a right to see the child alive (or, what is the same, that the child has a right to live of its own) implies that they have the right to induce her to deliver it alive even though that entails aggression against her body. This is clearly incompatible with liberal principles.
I’m not angry because someone had an abortion. Personally, I feel a good majority needs them and should have had them in the past. The only anger I have are so called libertarians who still support coercion against people owning their bodies.
It has no bearing on whether or not a person “may be” murdered, since we are considering non-persons. One is assured that his life is safe from agression not by the laws in a society, but by the precautions that one takes (carrying a weapon, hiring bodyguards or buying insurance against agressive acts). Criminals never regard the laws, else they wouldn’t be criminals.
That is the point I am making, that an infant is a (somewhat) useless mass of flesh.
Well, I would not “discard” any infants or toddlers belonging to me, but others are free to do so. No one owes anything to anyone else. To assume otherwise is a socialist notion of justice.
It has nothing to do with when life begins. Biologically, life begins at conception, I have always conceded the point to “pro-lifers.” The important question is “where do rights begin.” Rights do not begin at conception, but only at an indeterminate level of human development, once a human is capable of rational, deliberative discourse. Then the human can assert his rights.
Under libertarian tradition, people are either the owners of their bodies, their bodies are protected from aggression, or both. If you want to deny these assumptions, then you deny the libertarian philosophy and you should start your own thread to espouse your own philosophy. Maybe “Claytonism”.
The child can not be expelled without being harmed, or put in harms way. If you harm a person or put him in harms way, you are aggressing against that person.
Under libertarian tradition, aggression (initiation of force.) is never legitimate.
Murder may be prosecuted by anyone, not just those that share a bloodline.
That’s because you have changed your position from this:
To this:
So your position now is that the property in question is the “right” of the parents to speak for a child that does not yet exist.
I don’t know where to begin to argue against this position because it’s so abstract and faith-based that I am actually baffled by it. Maybe some other time…
Prosecuting murder on this basis is exactly the same as prosecuting someone because they hurt your feelings. Since when do you have a right to the continued life of another individual?
Where do these obscure rights come from? More importantly, where do these rights find a basis in libertarian assumptions?
A embryo/fetus is scientifically the same organism that develops into an infant. (Just like an adolescant develops into an adult.) An infant is a human, therefore a embryo/fetus is a human.
All humans should be protected against aggression. (A libertarian assumption. Non-aggression principle.)
Further, because a embryo/fetus is a human, killing it is homicide and because an embryo/fetus is incapable of aggression, the act is murder.
I have not assumed that conclusion, I have showed you every step of the way how I got there.
At the very least be forcefully neutered.
You are saying that a person loses rights based on the amount of physical and/or mental action a person can take. Therefore, all I have to do to prove you wrong is to show you one instance in which a person is completely immobilized and mentally incompetant, but preserves all his rights.
A sleeping person.
This doesn’t deserve a response. You should thank me for my charity.
If a person didn’t own his own his own body, and if it wasn’t protected against aggression, then your argument might be valid.
It’s okay to neuter, but abortions are wrong? What kind of thinking is that? Who’s to decide who’s to be neutered on what reasoning (reminds me of some despotic one child policy…)? Also, the thinking is a bit backwards, if you ask me. Person A gets pregnant, it was not intentional, and she cannot raise a child at this point in her life, so she has an abortion. As a punishment, you make it to where she can literally have as much sex as she wants, and will never get pregnant. It’s like when a father catches his kid smoking a cig, and makes him smoke an entire pack/carton as punishment. Sounds more like enabling to me.
This is your best arguement I think. Putting someone in harms way. Do you think this emplies a positive obligation to provide for another person till they can be removed from your property. Example, person shows up at your house, you invite them in. Then you ask them to leave for any reason you want. They then must leave, but there is a snow storm and its below zero and they have no coats able to protect them from the snow and cold. Am I obligated to hold them on my property, feed, shelter, and maintain their health until the storm subsides and the temperature returns to normal? What if their use of your property cost you dearly financially and in resources, such as having to choose between eating yourself or feeding them? Maybe they are a smoker and you have a severe alergy to smoke (your throat closes up and you die style)? Do you still have to maintain them?
Aggression violates the Non-Aggression Principle, always. I think you meant to say, “Violence,” or, “Force,” rather than, “Aggression.” There is a very big difference.
It’s a matter of definition, but point taken. It’s a very fine line between the two that is not always easy to make. However, the commenter in response to my commet seems to be equating any cause of physical harm on human life with “aggression”, leaving no room for any legitimate acts of violence. He is not interested in arguing against the proposition that the fetus may be considered an intruder when the mother decides she does not want to carry it any longer, but instead, he focuses on the physical violence inflicted on the fetus and the ultimate consequences as a result of abortion.
While not directed at me I reassert a previous response.
No human being comes out of a womb self sufficient.
No human being is obligated to provide charity.
Just because it might be good manners or good morals to provide charity to someone in need doesn’t make anyone obligated to provide charity.
On the other side of the coin. I find nothing wrong with people discriminating against or ostracizing people in their communities who do not exercise arguably good manners or morals.
I agree with you on both of those points. Your analysis doesn’t cover his argument though. His point is that an abortion puts a child in harms way. If I push you into a river and you drown, am I muderer or did the river murder you? Obviously I put you in harms way. For a child anywhere except a womb or uninvented artificial womb is a dangerous place. In this instance he is equating those two scenarios as a muderous act.
I posted Aristotle’s quote because it’s the ___________ that has always been undefined. It’s the ___________ that has always been in dispute.
There is no evidence to consider when __________ has any sensation attributed with life. Most believe there is sensation when the organism exists the womb. Some believe there is sensation in the late term of pregnancy prior to the organism exiting the womb. Some believe there is sensation even earlier.
It’s the sensation that brings people discomfort. Most people are uncomfortable with the concepts of inflicting pain or suffering. People do not empathize with killing a single cell organism when there is no concept of sensation to create conditions of perceived pain or suffering.
There are no remedies for a possibility or a possible future outcome. The very concept of remedy only deals with the past. Again this is why the definition of life is important. To remedy past aggressive actions.
In any event voluntary society offers the most opportunity for unborn persons. Life is more profitable than death.
This is my answer to the direct question.
It is unjust to coerce a woman to birth an unborn person without a remedy or restitution.
It is unjust to punish a women without remedy or restitution for initiating aggression to prevent birth of an unwanted unborn person.