Easy, if abortion is the only available immediate means in ridding oneself of an invader. In other words, if abortion is the only viable option for the mother, it is totally and completely within her ethical right to employ it. If abortion is not the only available means a woman has, it is a murderous act. But as of now, it’s the only known method of fetus removal (and still, the fetus dies without support).
If someone is in your home, stealing your things, and the only way you can stop them from doing it is by killing them, you are within your right to kill them. Of course, you’d have to prove that that was the only option you had, but that is hardly relevant here.
Right, but if you invite someone into your home, then later want them to leave and they cannot, you do not have the right to kill them where they stand. or do you?
Let’s try to remember that pregnancy more times than not, is not something that occurs beyond the mother’s control. If a woman engages in activity leading up to pregnancy, and allows the pregnancy to persist until the child is somewhat developed, I think it becomes very messy when minds change and a late term abortion is made.
If we were siamese twins, would I have the right to kill you as a means of separating myself from you? Let’s assume that there’s no other means that would preserve your life.
I’m not using very precise language here, but to borrow your terminology, it seems that in pregnancy, the woman is generating a co-homesteader of a sort. I’m sure you’d object to that, but it’s the best analogy I can think of for now. I would argue that the woman has the stronger claim even so, but at the same time has created a legitimate competing interest as well. I think that makes the most sense of the ‘continuum of life’ element because it means the embryo–>fetus–>baby has a non-zero and increasing claim as time goes on. Unless you’re willing to say that a woman has a full right to abort one hour before conception.. and perhaps you are. But I find that a very untenable argument. And I picked one hour arbitrarily. Move the time frame as small as you like.
As for a ‘right to life’ being a positive obligation, I don’t think it would have to be.. I think it could be stated negatively, just as property rights don’t have to be positive, though they could be stated that way: ‘I have a right to some property’ (Georgist, or whatever).
No, and the woman is not generating a co-homesteader. It’s her womb.
If you have a right to life, then someone has to provide the upkeep for the life to you. You can’t have a negative right to life, for it means you must be kept alive until you die naturally.
Well alright, say there is a negative right to life. All it means is one’s life is one’s own to direct, and for all practical purposes this amounts to self-ownership (the Aristotelian defence of libertarianism indeed is grounded in the basic, negative right to liberty and the corollary right to one’s life and one’s property.) The problem is, of course, you’d still have to show why this is relevant. All it does is switch the phrase from “self-ownership” to “right to life”, assuming we’re referring to a negative variant. Whilst this matters for justificatory purposes (as in, how self-ownership is justified), it does not alter the role either concept plays in this debate (because the end result is the same.)
And even in these cases, it is not like the baby “invaded” the woman’s body. The man who raped her did, and he is the one who should be punished, not the baby.
Well, I’m not sure what point you are trying to make with that. It’s the act of intentionally trying to have an placed in you for the purpose of having a baby.