yeah, i think it makes sense to me now
no one should be held accountable for letting their babies die from hunger,
Parents have the right to their property, just like anyone else.
I would say at conception or at least at the first signs of conciousness since it is by the child’s actions that they develop and grow; by their own labor.
If it IS another human actor, it’s still at the whim of the mother, since it’s invading her body.
It’s not murder, because prior to the act of murder, the victim posessed rights which were violated.
Prior to the act of conception (or emergence as a rational actor) the child posessed no rights. They have no legal or ethical claim that an act of aggression was made against them in their creation and thus they have no right to claim any labor or property from the parent(s).
Then the parents could kill the child either in the womb or out.
That doesn’t follow from my statement…
If A child is a self owner and possesses rights to not be aggressed against, where does the option of killing the baby come into play?
I merely stated that there are no inherant positive obligations the parent has to its child.
Your formula for rights of self-ownership appears to be the emergence of a rational actor. Both fetuses and infants are non-rational, and both fetuses and infants are dependent on others for their survival. Thus, I don’t see why it makes any difference whether the parents kill the child in the womb or out.
This somes up the basic position for the pro-abortion crowd. Either you believe that parents cause children to be created and are thus responsible for what they created or you believe no one is accountable. The idea that people should not be accountable for their own actions in the creation of other human beings is the height of absurdity.
If you believe people are responsible for their actions then parents are obligated to the extent they are possible to care for the children they create while in the womb and afterwards. The whole pro-abortion crowd is constantly seeking to justify murder by any mechanism possible. This is yet another debate where the pro-abortion crowd can never give a straight answer on anything.
If you don’t mind me saying, this is a huge clusterfuck. Infants ARE rational actors… though so are pongids, canines, etc. This has been an ethical issue I’ve been dealing with a while and my lack of general knowledge of ethics has not helped. From what I see you either have to somehow show that the potentiality of being an ethical human being grants you moral immunity from murder, though in this case you’d have to say that fetuses have the same rights, or you have to say that in that case other animals have moral rights as well. I do believe that tests have shown that various pongids have the same mental capabilities as many infants. What you have here is a rather odd ethical paradox if you refuse to accept abortion as immoral. In my view, if we accept that only humans capable of being ethical have moral rights and that the possibility of being capable of moralness in the future also grants you certain moral rights, fetuses have the same rights as infants and children and adult humans. Likewise, severely retarded humans might not qualify for such rights because they are not and never will be capable of being any more ethical than, say, a bonobo.
A different approach we could take would be a more “dog eat dog” vision in which we accept that fetuses and infants are inferior to adult humans and therefore accept abortion and infanticide, just as we accept the killing of cows and sheep for meat. Again, I could be missing something, but if we accept that certain mental faculties, like your ability to comprehend what is moral and immoral, give you certain rights, then we have to deny these rights to certain human beings whether we like it or not.
What? It’s not the stork?
The stork is less ludicrous than what the pro-abortion crowd usually spouts.
If you don’t like how a child is being raised then raise it yourself.
But why do I have a feeling your solution is telling others how to parent at the point of a gun?
No matter how much some here want to demonstrate their moral superiority, there is no legal solution to this. We must rely on the incentives of the market, not disincentives created by armed gangs.
What nonsense. We don’t need the market to determine what murder is. It doesn’t strike me as moral superiority to think that murdering children is unacceptable. A little common sense will be just fine.
Who said anything about murder?
Edit:
And yes we do need a market for justice to determine what murder is.
Well then we’ll have to deny it to them, I guess. If one cannot deliberate on an action and examine why or why not it should be undertaken, and does not even in principle have the potential for this, in what sense could this be called a moral action? It’s just pure impulse. Also keep in mind that Mises’s conception of rationality is very minimalist, and not the same as what ethicists evoked. It is explicitly for the purposes of praxeological analysis that it is so.
-Jon
Even if a fetus posesses rights, abortion is not immoral. The mother posesses rights to her body and would therefore have a right to use the means available to her in removing the child/fetus if she so pleased.
False dilema.
You’ve done nothing to link that condition to your claim. Try again.
The whole anti-abortion crowd is constantly seeking to justify slavery by any mechanism possible.
[8-)]
Ok let’s have the debate and demonstrate either your end solution is so horrific that no normal human being will ever agree or that your position is not capable of defining what a human being is with any certainty. Here we go. When does human life begin?
I welcome all comers. I can hardly wait for your response.
Is it moral to murder someone who is on your property but poses no threat when you can simply “kick them out?”
Conception.
Well, that was a dead end. Guess we better get back on topic.
If murdering them is the only means at your disposal, yes.