@Chrisspminis:

Carrying for a baby for 9 months and giving birth against her will doesn't count as an infringement of a right to you or nola???

So putting on all that weight, carrying this thing that can move, putting great stress on your body, undergoing hormonal issues, and then giving BIRTH to this thing, squeezing it out with all that pain...

Against her WILL?

What DOES, then, constitute an infringement of rights- you're literally forcing a woman to experience pain by keeping the baby, the pain the stress of her body experiences and then the pain of giving birth!

How can a state POSSIBLY force a woman to feel pain, particularly when she's committed no offense udner the law?

THAT sounds like the DEFINITION of "curel and unusual punishment," and we have an Ammendment against THAT already.

orathaic - I was merely arguing that from the perspective of DNA, early stage fetuses "look" essentially identical to adult humans. This was in response to one of obiwanobiwan's arguements that they two don't "look alike" without defining what "look alike" meant. Caterpillars don't "look" like butterflies at all, but they are the same species.

Should one person die so that another is not inconvenienced for a little while? - perhaps.

Should one person be inconvienced to safe another person's life? Should i pay tax to cover the cost of health care for another person?

Well actually i think i would answer yes to this question - but i don't consider an embryo to fit into the 'person' category.

nola, that rubble analogy is interesting. I've never heard that one before. I'd like you to consider and analogy that you may have heard before but I'd like to hear your response anyway. Imagine that at a routine check up your doctor informs you of a program whereby you could save a man's life if you agree let him be hooked up to you for a period of nine months. It will be a great inconvenience to you, but you'd be saving his life. Would you consent? Should consent even be an issue or should you just be hooked up to him based on moral obligation?

This isn't even a foetus, it's a full grown human being with full rights. At any given moment, the money you spent on your own convenience could have easily saved the lives of many children in developing countries.

obiwanobiwan - Excluding special cases (which I am going to argue for the moment are not relevant here), the vast marjority of abortions are purely elective and the result of consentual intercourse (i.e was consented to by her will). When you do something that has the potential for consequences, sometimes those consequences result and you have to deal with them.

Also, I would argue that the right to life (i.e to not be killed) outweighs by an order of magnitude all other rights. If it does not, then other rights are essentially meaningless (because without our life we can not exercise any other right). So if one person is inconvenienced (even mightily) for a while because the only way to end that inconvenience is to kill someone else, then they are going to be inconvenienced for a while. Note my holding up the rubble example from earlier on this.

Chrispminis - If I was the only possible person who could do it (which is the case with women by the way) and no other option was available, then I would likely be willing to do so. However, the critical difference here is that I am not sticking a needle into the guy and injecting poison into him by not helping; he is dying of natural causes. Abortion involves the needle (or some other rather gruesome procedure).

And the problem in developing countries is not the $100 I did not send them last year. The problem is the government/culture that allows that society to continue as it is. That, however, is an argument for another thread.

I hate to define again but...

In your rubble definition, I see a person holding up rubble for... the quivalelant of an ant.

You have yet to convince me that the person holding up the rubble (mom) is holding it up for a PERSON... when I'm convinced that it is NOT.

So the right to life- the right to life for an ant is not greater than the right to not feel pain (birth pain and carrying pain and ecomomic pain, a LOT of pain) for the human.

obiwanobiwan - At what point do you believe that human life is worth protecting? And are you 100% (not 99%) absolutely certain that life before that point in time is not valuable, or do you just think it might not be? If you are not, should you not error on the side of caution and protect that life?

"Also, I would argue that the right to life (i.e to not be killed) outweighs by an order of magnitude all other rights." - i would argue that the right to life is pointless without the right to having a comfortable life, a life of suffering is in fact worse than no life at all.

And thus i think we should be more concerned with the quality of life of those who are already here. (bringing me back to my health care reference)

"should you not error on the side of caution and protect that life?" - no, we may be protecting quality of life in the place of quantity and making the world a better place.

nola2172:

On the contrary, I believe the fetus has value.

I simply see the live, actualized human being as being more valuable.

Morally.
Ethically.
And in the way of Utility (the mother can be an nurse in a hospital and save other actualized human lives- fetus can't.)

It's not like I'm saying, "Abort all fetuses! They are worthless, ladies! Why go through the pain, you hear me... worthless!"

I AM saying, however, that if it came down to the decision:

-The actualized human persona and being of the mother outweights the potential of a fetus
-The rights of the mother are more sound than the rights of a fetus
-The mother is entitled to all human rights, the fetus is not
-The mother is more important than the fetus if there must be a choice
-It is immoral and illogical to force a woman to carry and be in pain for a potential
-It is a violation of natural rights a la Locke to force a woman to carry

orathaic - Since when does anybody have a right to a "comfortable" life? Did I miss that somewhere, and who exactly is supposed to provide me with that comfort? I would prefer to engage in recreation all day every day, but for some reason, I seem to have to go to work a lot.

Yeah, you must have missed the universal declaration of human rights... check it out!

obiwanobiwan - Using your six bulleted points (and I would disagree with all of them), I am not sure how the fifth one in any way proceeds from the first four (unless you are just stating it as fact without support), and just throwing the name Locke out there for the sixth one does not add anything to the discussion because I would argue that the right to life is the highest natural right. Heck, Locke even said that the natural rights are (note the order): "life, liberty, and estate (property).

Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself...

orathaic - Just looked at the full text. I did not see the word "comfort" anywhere in there.

@nola22172:

Yes, they were just there in any order, not proceeding from each other.

And I agree with your assesment of Locke:

The woman's life.
The woman's liberty.
The woman's property/estate (again, economic troubles...)

Locke ALSO states that no one can violate natural rights, those rights.

That "EVERYONE" extends to the government, so...

The government CANNOT force a woman to carry the baby, as it violates all three of those natural rights.

OK, so according to the UN I have the right to some rest and leisure and a decent standard of living. I am not sure how exactly that has anything whatsoever to do with the current discussion. Also note that Article 3 starts with "Everyone has the right to life".

Nola, do you actually disagree with this: "the right to life is pointless without the right to having a comfortable life" ?

That quality of life never trumps quantity?

and Article 3 doesn't define what everyone is, in fact article one states:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." emphasis on the word born?

obiwanobiwan - Do you make your statement on order with some basis, or do you just assume Locke was sloppy? I think he rather intentionally them in that order because each proceeds from the prior and is of greater importance than the prior.

I would frame the argument this way. Preganancy does not take a woman's life. Abortion takes the life of her unborn child. Therefore, on the first natural right, abortion is not permissible. We don't get to liberty because life happened first.

Also, would you please answer my question as to the exact moment that you believe human life is worth protecting? You have not done so as of yet that I can find anywhere (but you have been in between a few different positions from what I can tell).

but that is going to the definition of what is life, which i have claimed at the begining to be a non-trivial question which i can't definitely answer...

"Also, would you please answer my question as to the exact moment that you believe human life is worth protecting?" - i can't, but i can say that i trust a woman to make a better decision for her body than i can.

orathaic - I most definitely disagree with your definition of a comfortable life. What the heck does that even mean? Does that mean I don't have to work if I don't feel like it (maybe work is quite uncomfortable to me)?

As to Article 1 - Yes, that is what it states, and I do not disagree that we are born free. However, that in no way precludes that we have right before we exit the womb.

orathaic - If you are not sure when life begins, should you not error on the side of protecting it (just in case)? Death is irreversible and permanent, but pregnancy only lasts nine months and then it is over with.

"I most definitely disagree with your definition of a comfortable life." - i never provided a definition of what is a comfortable life, you're imagining that i said something along the lines of 'any woman should choose to avoid the pain of carrying a child by aborting it because their comfort is more important'

I am instead trying to put forward the position that the fetus should not be allowed to develop into a person if it means it must suffer a painful life.

And i have also stated that i am not capable of judging for other people when they should or should not abort a pregnancy.

No, if i am not sure i should not force my views on other people, or what they do with their body.

the destruction of a fetus may be the best course of action for that life - but i am not in a position to make that judgement.

Orathaic - On the comfortable life issue - how on earth can you possible know whether someone's entire life will be "painful"? People can live for quite a long time and lots of things can happen. A few months back I met a man who is from Africa and was orphaned as a small child. Now he has a wife, kids, and a high level position with an international charity. And who are you (or anyone else) to make the decision for them by killing them before it even happens?

And you have rather evaded my question about whether or not we should error on the side of life, but by saying that you are "not capable of judging" you are essentially saying that life should not be protected.

I have to head off to bed, but I may be able to respond (briefly) in the morning.

@nola2172:

I... didn't reorder Locke's order, I kept it in the life/liberty/property order, so I don't see your qualm there, and as I already have not counted, and have consistent in not counting, the fetus pre-Viable as a human life, I hardly see myself in violation of Locke's Big Three.

I doubt he intended us to put the life, liberty, or property of ants before human beings; as I view the pre-Viable fetus as being on par with other mammalian fetuses only (likes treated as likes) and NOT human beings...

The natural rights of human beings as per Locke do NOT apply in my interpretation, nor, I would argue, in Locke's if my assessment of the status of a fetus being lower than a fully actualized human being stands.


And I think I have answered when I think a life becomes a human life befofe, but to make it clear:

I am of the opinion that a life becomes a HUMAN life when it is capable of experiencing life as a fully actualized human being, ie, a baby.

That means at the EARLIEST, a Viable Fetus, the Last Trimester, when the organism MAY survive outside of the mother and thus experience life as a human being, when it is CAPABLE of that...

THAT is ehn it is a human being.

That is NOT to be confused with when it is a PERSON.

It is a PERSON when it develops a persona, ie, when it has its first experiences in the outside-womb world.

The difference?

The natural rights case as per Locke extends to the organism from Viable Fetus on, as it is then in a state where it has human form and faculties, its just encased in a womb and cut off from the outside world and the ability to become a person, but as it CAN now be a person fully and CAN be extracted if the mother doesn't want it/can't survive with it, and as it at that point has the human faculties and seses developed to the degree where it can feel pain in the sense we would imagine (as it is, after all, a human baby now just cut off from the outside world, for all intents and purposes, a baby in a bubble) and as such, it is fully a human being and must then be granted the rights of a human being, it's not its "fault" its still cut off from the world, but fully formed and with fully human faculties, it MUST be treated like a human being.

However, from the standpoint "Is this a person?" the anser is NO, as it doesn't have human experiences yet, as it is not in the, for lack of a better term, "human plane," ie, not the womb, and can only continue, despite its human faculties, to experience fetal experiences, and not develop empircally a persona and thus become a person (either through sheer emprical gain or empricicsm working with the hard-=wired genetics, whichever you prefer.)

When does the person vs. human being matter... matter?

For one instance, suppose, purely hypotheitically, the Viable Fetus is causing the mother harm, the mother will die from the harm, and the fetus cannot, for some reason (if there is no "real" medical reason then remember this is a thought experiment and just pretend) be extracted.

We now have a person with a persona (Mom) vs. a Human Being but no persona (baby.)

Mom wins on that situation, and the tragic Third Trimester Abortion of a Viable Fetus that really should not occur occurs.