Pregnancy and paternity are known consequences of engaging in sexual intercourse. Abortion eliminates that consequence from the choice to have sexual intercourse. This is part of fallen human nature, to seek escape from the consequences of our choices.
No, it isn’t. Prior to the full development of the cerebral cortex at about 24 weeks the capacity is not actual, it is potential. The potential for having the capacity is not the same thing as actualling having the capacity (whatever the degree of that capacity or however well or badly you use it).
No? How retarded are we talking about here? Again, I think you’re continuing to mistake degree of capacity and/or how well one can/does use one’s capacity for the capacity itself. Children have a natural and temporarily diminished capacity, but they have the capacity. Zygotes do not have the capacity. I’m no expert on mental retardation but most, if not all, retarded people I’ve seen, met, read about, etc., have a natural but permanently diminished capacity for rationality (the severity varies from case to case).
Nope. Not arbitrary.
Are we talking about what’s moral and ought to be done, or what’s legal and ethically permissable?
I regard it as a moral issue, and I’m not really sure how that’s distinct from ethics. Whether or not abortion is legal is a political question.
I was mainly responding to the argument that the fetus has not been invited, when he or she most certainly has by the woman engaging in consensual sex. Obviously, that is not the case with rape which is a trespass and a theft of the woman’s genetics.
Well there’s a difference between what is moral and what is ethically permissable. I believe it is immoral to commit adultry, but it is still permissable, that is, there is no justifiable claim in preventing such actions by force.
No. I’m talking about legality in the form of justifiable force.
The consent was not an agreement between the mother and child. The child has not been invited to exist within the mother.
Even if it had been invited, the mother would still have a right to remove it. Since you have a right to nullify an invitation.
In the mother’s case, she has foreknowledge that her invitee cannot leave like a party guest who’s overstayed his welcome. She’s estopped from revoking her invitation at that point. In a like manner, contracts with children are not enforcable. The law recognizes that children can’t competently bargain with adults, so an adult who contracts with a child does so at his own risk. If he doesn’t want an unenforceable contract, then he needs to find another adult to bargain with. This asymmetry also prevails in the case of pregnancy. The unborn child did not choose the pregnancy while the mother did. The transaction is completely one-sided.
That’s why a fetus has no rights.
Geoffrey,
So, do you say that at 24 weeks the fetus (now having the capacity for reason) becomes a self-owner? If so, after the 24 weeks, is violence, by which I mean an act of agression, deemed ethical and should be legal. (Now please know I am not talking about removal, but auctual violence)
Jack.
Wrong. It does absolutely no such thing. If it does, then having a broken bone set eliminates the consequences of breaking a bone.
And we do not have a fallen nature.
What invitee? It doesn’t exist until the sperm and egg meet. So there is no invitee.
The pro-abortion crowd gets all fired up and can still not answer the simple question of when human life begins. Let me educate you a little on how the baby making process works, the mother’s body is specifically designed to invite the fertilized egg into the body for implantation and form an attachment to it. So the fetus is in fact biologically invited in to the womans body. This is not even a conscious act the woman can control it is so basic to the function of the womans body. So the fetus is invited in and as such is dependent on the mother at the mother’s invitation.
What the pro-abortion crowd really can’t handle is that the basic human instinct tells us that killig children is wrong but since they don’t want to have responsibility for their actions so they invent all sorts of contorted arguements to escape responsibility. There is not one abortion lover in this thread who can coherently answer the question of when human life begins.
The only abortion lover who even tried to answer the question was Geoffrey with his 24 weeks answer. When asked if this was arbirtrary he said no. Then why not 23 days 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds? What happens in that 1 second?
Max, you need to make an effort and try to grasp two things :
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a fetus is not a child (a very basic and obvious fact)
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you’re openly advocating murdering (‘death penalty’) innocent people - that’s not something libertarians do.
Liar. It has been answered several times, including by Murray Rothbard. So spare us your lies, and spare us your irrelevant garbage, ok.
Let me educate you on some points: that the woman has a womb to carry the fetus does not mean she MUST carry the fetus. Only a flagrant non sequitur would have othewise. Further, in no possible way is the fetus biologically invited into the woman’s body. Ipse dixits are not welcome here. And then we have the inconceivable notion that once granted, consent can never be rescinded. What sort of bald-faced epic failure reasoning could you possibly be using in order to come up with that gem? Finally, we have your redefinition of “responsibility” in order to exclude abortion from it. You’ve yet to show that abortion is escaping responsibility, and you have had it shown to you that having a broken bone set would then be escaping the responsibility of having a broken bone! It broke; you deal with it. You live with it until you die. Having it set escapes responsibility.
What you fetophiles cannot stand is that the woman has rights while she is pregnant. You want to make her not human. And if you don’t like that, perhaps you shouldn’t strawman the pro-choice position. Get it?
You have no arguement just your rantings. All of the logical questions that expose your pro-abortion ideology as irrational you fail to supply an answer to. I have noticed that with your discussions that you can not defend your own arguements but simply repeat whatever mantra that you happen to be on at the moment.
If you are unable to define when human life begins how can you seriously have a discussion about humans. You have no defintion of a human being so until you have that basic startng point from which all rights originate no serious discussion is possible. that is why all pro-abortion arguements end this way because your position is only that the pro-life position is wrong without any attempt on your part to define the alternative. And why can’t you define the alternative? Because the alternatives are illogical and have no internal consistency but are based on your emotion and desire to abdicate responsibility for basic human behavior.
When pro-life people are challenged we always answers the questions but when the pro-abortion crowd is challenged on their irrational position they start screaming hysterically “womans womb, womans womb” and run away.
Why don’t you attempt to answer the basic question of when human life begins?
You openly advocate killing children and I merely advocate that the child murderer should be held accountable. I know the pro-abortion crowd hates accountability.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Now come up with a reasoned response to my argument–and don’t you DARE lie about people not saying when life begins. MANY people have, including Murray Rothbard. So if you decide you want to lie again, you will concede. If you wish to redefine “responsibility” to preclude abortion, you concede. If you can’t come up with a reasoned response to my argument, you concede. Period. I will not tolerate any further games from you.
Why? It’s already been answered, and it’s irrelevant.
You openly advocate the de-humanization of all pregnant woman and their enslavement. I advocate that women have rights. I know you fetophiles hate women.
See what happens when you create a strawman? One can be created of your position, and if you say anything about it: you’re a hypocrite. I’ve got you over a barrel. So either stop the game or shut up. And yes: you are trying to silence those with the truth (because I know you want to try to play that game, so I’m going to cut you off from it).
Don’t worry Knight, he’s about to declare victory again. It’ll all be over soon [:P]
Its odd. We don’t get many trolls here, but the ones that do find their way here are really bad. You’re the next Nathyn, Max! Congrats!
Without the state there is no ban on abortion. Therefore it would be legal.
I don’t know how you can argue that. What I mean is, without the state there would not be a ban on anything (without private courts and law). So, without the state (and no law) I can kill a someone remote from society (someone no one will miss and demand ‘justice’) and it would be ‘legal’.
As to the question of life. Life, of course, begins at conception (think all things living) and we must say that this life is classified as ‘human’. But merely being human does not grant the rights associated with self-ownership (natural rights). Some have argued (and I now concede to this argument) that capacity to reason actualizes natural rights. Thus, while still in the womb, a baby has already attained the rights of self-ownership since it acquires the capacity to reason at the development of the cerebral cortex.
Now, at this point, we are dealing with a relationship between two self-owners (is this not true). From this I contend that abortion, ethically, should be no more that removal of one self-owner (the baby) from the property of the other self-owner (the mother). An act of violence against the baby (and most abortions today include direct harm to the baby) can not be ethically allowable. Am I right here?