on children and pregnancy and abortion

We are not to be made slaves. We are self-owners. Your view means that women are enslaved. Do you wish to go that route? Didn’t think so.

The fetus has no ownership-stake in the woman. It’s her body. First use. Homesteading. Unless you wish to explain how the fetus acquires ownership in the woman, you have no case. Period. “Responsible for the dependency” in the sense that you wish to use it (that the fetus owns the woman) presumes true that abortion isn’t being responsible without ever demonstrating it.

If I incur a debt, then I enslave myself. If women and men don’t want to pay for babies then they shouldn’t make them.

I think it’s pretty self-evident that abortion is done for one or both of the parent’s expediency.

No, you merely incur an obligation.

And how is abortion “not paying for it”?

In the words of my friend Stix:

“That’s a hasty generalization (assumes all abortions are done for convenience), special pleading (emotive comparison between the assumed motive and the outcome), begging the question (that the assumed motive doesn’t justify the decision), and poisoning the well (assumes convenience to be the only motive). Avoid using logical fallacies please; they’re a waste of time and do not strengthen your argument.”

Not quite.

Forgive me if I copy-paste.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/division.html

My shorthand version of FC’s argument would be a fallacy of division.

A valid argument from division:

My car is traveling at 60mph, my cup holder can not move independent of the rest of my car, my cup holder is moving at 60mph.

Because it eliminates the cost of pregnancy.

Your friend Stix is just flinging bulls***, btw. Outside of high school debate class, that sentence wouldn’t impress anybody.

Yeah, it is. There isn’t any adequate evidence for the claim; it’s simply asserted that the fetus has this property. Where’s the evidence? Certainly it’s clear that if a car is travelling at 60mph, the cupholder is as well (from a certain reference frame, anyway). But ownership is a property of a whole being. My left pinkie has no ownership rights. I, as the whole, do. See what I’m getting at?

And abortions are always free? And there’s no psychological or physical effect? You really want to special plead, don’t you?

IOW: Stix is completely correct. Thanks for conceding.

No, they don’t. Walter Block has made this point, and I’ll reiterate it: you cannot have more than one person who owns something. You might lack conflict in reality, but when push comes to shove, you have ONE owner because rights cannot conflict. Yes, it is possible for a married couple to both live in a house and both treat it like it is their property, but, ultimately, only one of them can have exclusive control over the property. If they disagree over how to use the house (for example, one wishes to sell it, and the other doesn’t), then we see this clearly. If both of them “owned” the property, then we would have a conflict on who has the right to use the property as he/she wishes. But you cannot have such conflicts with regards to property - property rights are a system by which to avoid conflict over scarce resources.

Good, now we are in a position to discuss the evidence.

For example, a fetus exists as a whole person within a person, unlike a finger. Comparing a fetus to a finger is a false analogy.

No, it’s not, since JC’s idea was that if the fetus was part of the woman it thus has ownership claims.

Further, since the woman is a whole person, and necessarily a self-owner…

How does that add to your case? Furthermore, the parents picked abortion as the preferred option to them over carrying the pregnancy to term and rearing the child.

You said they didn’t want to pay for the child. They’re still paying for the abortion. So…?

So?

In choosing to abort, the parents are exercising a preference for one course of action over the other: carrying a pregnancy to term and rearing a child. This can only be, generally speaking, because they perceive the benefits to them to be greater than otherwise.

And…?

And, therefore, they are choosing a lower cost (to them) option. I make this syllogism in response to your assertion that abortion is somehow an equivalent discharge of obligations arising from consensual activity as carrying the child to term and rearing him to a state of independent living.

Depends on what is meant by “cost”.

You’ve yet to demonstrate that the woman is obligated to carry the child to term.

Because, as Folsom originally pointed out, we are responsible for the state of dependency we create in others. If I drive while drunk and disable somebody, I am obligated to pay for their disability notwithstanding my lack of specific intent. If a woman voluntarily creates a fetus that can only survive by carrying the pregnancy to term, then she is obligated to pay for that fetus. It is not an arms-length transaction because the fetus is unable to bargain for more favorable terms and is in this state, again, solely due to the mother’s own conduct. If she doesn’t want a baby inside her, then she can have her tubes tied or not engage in baby-making activities. The fetus, by contrast, cannot choose not to be in the mother’s womb. Abortion is not an equivalent discharge of that obligation because it represents the parents’ preference only, and is chosen only because they believe it is the least costly of two preferences.

So a woman is obligated to become a slave? She loses her self-ownership? How the hell can you defend that communist nonsense?

No, she is not. If she is, then she is not a self-owner. The fetus owns her. Do you want to endorse communism and slavery?

I always love that tinge of hatred of sex. Oh don’t go denying it now.

Special pleading.

If you incur a debt, you pledge your future labor. Nothing commie about that.

Ah yes, the time-honored personal attack. I like it because it frees me to respond in kind. Do you have any good-looking female relatives who could verify this assertion? Have them PM me.