(09-14-2010 11:17 AM)jh Wrote: One of anti-abortion people's typical responses to pro-abortion people calling themselves pro-choice is to claim that the woman made her choice when she decided to have sex. If a woman was raped, she had no choice. ....
And one of the ways you can try to argue with someone else is by picking a proxy argument and tearing that one apart... You know like when I said that Life is life, and you said but other people say .....
Quote:(cutting out the straw man) In order for abortion to be a violation of the right to life of the fetus, you must establish that the fetus has an independent claim on the mother's body.
When two peoples rights, any rights come into conflict the ethical and moral thing is to give priority to the right which is more fundamental. So the debate is this:
Is the right to not be killed (which is a right) more fundamental than the right to not be pregnant and are a persons rights diminished because of their origin?
Quote:In a standard pregnancy,
I've seen enough of them to know there ain't no such creature... but I digress
Quote:it can reasonably be argued that the claim is established when the mother voluntarily chooses to have sex (kind of like a reverse lottery - the cost, not the payout, is uncertain).
Horse crap, if that were the case than pro-choice people would already be on board for everything but rape and incest, but they are not so this is nothing but keyboard diarrhea.
If an unborn kid is a human being you have to measure the magnitudes of the rights at stake, if its not a human being why bother worrying about it at all?
Quote:But what if the woman has been raped? How is the claim established? When did she consent, even implicitly, to allow a fetus use of her body for nine months?
Was that *ever* a part of what I said? no you're still talking about someone else's argument. Mine was simply that all people, born and unborn, conceived of love and conceived of rape, have the same immutable rights.
Quote:That's the difference. As you say, a 4 year old product of rape is just as much of a person as a 4 year old conceived in love. It's not that a fetus which results from a rape is any less of a fetus. It has the same rights as any other fetus. It's just that the right to life, of any fetus, does not guarantee that the woman is obligated to carry it to term (another example is if the mother's life is in danger - the fetus's right to life is not violated because the decision is justified). That obligation must be established independently.
Holy crap I thought you would never get to my argument, kudo's for making it that far...
Featus-> greek for unborn child...
You're argument is that a fetus is not a baby which is pretty clear when you say "It's not that a fetus". Clearly you differentiate betwenn the human rights of an unborn baby (or the status of a featus as an unborn baby) and a child.
"It's just that the right to life, of any fetus, does not guarantee that the woman is obligated to carry it to term"
Funny, the government now considers 'healtcare' a right so much so that it's willing to take money, involuntarily, away from my family to give it to someone else but a mother caryring a baby for 9 months is pillaging it's mother.
"(another example is if the mother's life is in danger - the fetus's right to life is not violated because the decision is justified)"
Apples and oranges... If a doctor has two patients on the table and can only save one it's not murder to do so. If he has two atients on the table and both can live and he terminates one for the comfort of the other that is murder.