Stephen_BostonMA

Why? The overwhelming majority of home invasions do not result in murder. Yet, you claim that we cannot assume pregnancy to be a threat to a woman’s life, except in special cases.

long winded fool

You need to shed your knee-jerk fear of pregnancy. Pregnancy is not a punishment, it is a biological function of intercourse and nothing more. I have no emotional investment in this conversation, but your accusation that I do seems to indicate that you do. The sole reason why any animal wants to have sex is because they evolved from animals whose genes were propogated. Wanting to have sex gives your genes a better chance at survival than an animal that does not want to have sex.

Sex is not a magical expression of love on a biological level. It is an instinct. On an emotional level we can see it as an expression of love, or even as an expression of contempt, but it is childish to assume that this is why humans have sex. Humans have sex because they are animals and animals multiply. Our bodies operate the way that do solely because we are acutely adapted to our environment. Pregnancy is not a punishment, it is the function of sex. Pregnancy can be blocked 100% of the time without fail should any woman desire not to get pregnant. If she chooses not to block it and a human life results, that human should have the same right to exist that any other human does.

I don't know where you get religion from this.

Nonsense. There is no contract. The sole reason a three year old child has the right to be alive is not because some human has entered into a contract with it, it is because that three year old child is a human and all humans have (in a logically consistent society) the right to be alive.

But to use your reasoning, I might say that having intercourse is entering into a contract with any humans that are conceived as a result. You can deny this, but can you explain your double standard?

That's ridiculous reasoning. If that kills it then it is murder. Any human has the right to eject any other human from their life. No human has the right to kill another human, unless said human is an immediate threat to his or her life.

Wrong. The fetus IS free to appropriate the personal property of someone else because of the precedent of organ donation in relation to human rights. You cannot take back a donated organ. You cannot even take back an organ that was forcibly removed from your body without your approval and given to another human. This is a violation of human rights, which outweighs your right to your "personal property." All you can do is prosecute the person who forcibly removed the organ that another human is now using to survive. Your property has now become their property and you cannot legally kill them.

I agree. No human has the right to live at someone else's expense. Every human has the right to exist. Are you unable to reconcile these two notions?

Law enforcement officers are authorized to use lethal force in certain situations where civilians are not. They are, in effect, protected from certain laws, a little bit like the military, though less so. When a police officer kills someone who is not a threat, he is often pardoned of murder charges on the grounds that he was doing is job to the best of his ability and, due to the nature of the work, he simply made a mistake. Such officers are usually dismissed, but not often are they brought up on murder charges. All prison escapees are considered a threat by law enforcement because they are criminals illegally on the loose. This is how capital punishment can be legal. Execution removes a threat to human life.

Criminals obviously lose many (sometimes all) of their human rights. Unless a fetus can be guilty of a crime, this is not analogous to abortion. And being inside a womb is not a crime.

Well, I am factually wrong by simply referencing legal abortion, right?

Any law that puts some other right above the right to life is an irrational law. The right to life cannot logically exist if another right is more important. That is what this argument is about. I concede that law does not perfectly follow this notion. What I dispute is that law is perfectly rational the way it is.

What is a requirement of a society that expects to have just and rational laws is that all humans have the right to exist. No, society will not necessarily collapse with unjust laws. It will simply be unhealthy and have no solid foundation upon which to protect minorities from the majority. It will be more prone to collapse than a healthy society with just laws.

Sex is not a legal contract. The only "legal contract" that ought to exist between all humans regardless of any and all criteria are "We all have the right to exist." Only when this right is threatened does lethal force become an option.

My argument does not depend on pregnancy as a moral consequence of sex, so please dispense with this strawman. My argument does not exactly depend on the notion that the right to life is more important than anything else in American society, either. I conclude this in general with logic applied to the nature of society, then use it as a premise in an argument which shows that American society (where it is admittedly not true) has illogical laws and is therefore less healthy than it could be. If you want to challenge my premise that the right to life is more important than any other right in a logically consistent and healthy society, you cannot do so by pointing out American laws.

long winded fool

We cannot assume that pregnancy is a threat to a woman's life until such a threat manifests. Home invasions are analogous to complications in pregnancy. Not all complications result in the death of the mother, but there is a significant, immediate physical threat involved, therefore self-defense becomes justified. Living next door to a minority teenager does not constitute a threat just like being pregnant does not constitute a threat. Only when an immediate physical threat is manifest does a jury assume that lethal force is justified in protection of someone's right to life. Any historical exceptions to this (and I am sure that there are some,) are logically inconsistent with human rights laws. They are, in effect, a miscarriage of justice.

Yahzi

This is sheer sophistry. Why not assume that home invasions are not a threat to your life until complications occur?

Yahzi

I can accept your discussing a fantasy society, but I cannot accept a fantasy human nature. People have sex for more reasons than procreation. This is a simple fact, and you are simply wrong.

Only if you include abstinence as a form of birth control. Which is ludicrous; your doctor might as well tell you that you can avoid broken legs from skiing 100% by simply not skiing.

You just said: "If she chooses to have sex, she should be punished for it by accepting the burden of pregnancy."

Yes it does. If preganancy is not a morally inescapable result of sex, then having sex does not obligate you to be responsible for the fetus. Furthermore, above, you repeatedly asserted it.

I pointed out American laws to counter your suggestion that this was the way things are. If you would prefer to discuss the way things should be, I understand.

As I already argued, allowing the right to life to trump every other right inevitably leads to a dysfunctional society. People do what pays. If I work hard, and save up food, and you can take my food simply by not having any of your own, how long am I gonna work hard?

You are suggesting that people who make bad choices do not need to pay for those choices. While I agree that an ethical society does what it can to protect people from bad things, including their own choices, the notion that society is required to protect people who made bad choices at the expense of people who did not make bad choices is unworkable.

(For a narrative illumination of this principle, I suggest either Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" (just the speech about the motor company, not the whole book), or the parable of the ant and the grasshopper.)

If all I needed to do to get food and shelter was need it, and if I could need it simply by not having anything, then what incentive do I have to do anything? The classic response is, I get to have more (than just what is required by survival) by working hard; but in your society, my more can be taken away by other people who chose not to work.

Your socialist dream does not work. It has been tried, and it fails, because it does not adequately reflect human nature or human morality. There is a limit to my sympathy, and properly so: there is a point at which my comfort outwieghs your right to life, and properly so. If not, then all possiblity of comfort is drowned by the moral duties imposed on me by other people. If your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, then your right to demand my help ends not just at my starvation, but at some level of comfort before that. No one has the moral right to put me in bondage just becuase they are going to die (through no fault of mine).

But not at the expense of others. A principle you agree on: if the government siezed all your property to feed the starving in Africa, you would object. You keep saying that imminent death is the ultimate power card in any moral decision, and you keep letting people in Africa starve while you live in this orgy of decadance we call America. You do not support this principle of "life makes right" in ways that incovience you; only in ways that inconvience other people.

Unless sex is a contract, you made no donation. See how your argument continuly assumes a contract was made?

You are, when you fail to recognize that fetuses exist solely at the expense of others.

We were discussing who had to pay for it.

Easily. If the intent to procreate was not there, then it was not a contract to procreate.

Reason surrenders. The right to life trumps all other rights, unless you do something LWF doesn't like: then it's ok for the State to fry you. Notice how LWF doesn't hesitate to impose the burden of pregnancy on women; but is unwilling to impose the burden of paying for life-long prison sentences on taxpayers.

Just as an aside, utterly unrelated to anything else, I note that LWF is a) a taxpayer, and b) not a woman.

Stephen_BostonMA

What constitutes an immediate and significant threat? Aren’t the terms “immediate�? and “significant�? highly subjective?

Again, from a statistical point of view, a burglar is not likely to be a murderer, and a home invasion is not likely to end in murder. Why then should the home owner be allowed to act right away, but not the pregnant woman? If the home owner is able to decide for himself how much risk he wants to take, why not the pregnant woman? By waiting, the pregnant woman risks worsening any potential health problems.

long winded fool

It is not sophistry, and statistics are irrelevant. It is unreasonable to charge a human with murder if he or she honestly believes that his or her (or someone else's) life is in jeopardy, regardless of any statistics. If there is no legitimate reason to assume that the person's life was actually in jeopardy, and no legitimate reason that a reasonable person would believe this, but there is reason to believe that said person acted in an honest belief, then the person can be pardoned on the assumption that he or she acted with an unsound mind. For instance, a mental patient who stabs an orderly with a pen, or a delusional woman who has a panic attack and performs a "back-alley" abortion on herself. If there is no reason for a rational person to believe that the orderly or the fetus was a threat, and so long as the killer is judged to be of unsound mind, in neither of these cases should the killer be charged with murder. However in both cases the killer should be detained, monitered, and treated by a qualified doctor due to the threat they pose to themselves and others.

The reason not to assume that home invasions are not a threat to one's life is because the criminal act of breaking and entering is reasonably regarded by most rational adults as a highly threatening act. Much like rape. Therefore, to kill someone who is comitting such crime can be regarded legally, in almost all cases, as acting in the honest belief that one's life is in danger with legitimate cause for this belief. As such, the homicide in question is an act of self-defense and the killer can be pardoned of wrong doing, even if the intruder or rapist is later found to have been unarmed. Since the killer had no way of determining whether the actively threatening criminal was carrying a concealed deadly weapon, self-defense with lethal force is justified by the immediate threat as perceived by the resident, not by whether or not the criminal was, after the conclusion of an investigation, or after checking statistics, truly threat to the killer. A man who kills a kid with a toy gun is not charged with murder by default, he is only charged if it is reasonable to assume that the killer is aware that the gun is a toy before he shoots the kid. It does not matter what the statistics say about the danger little boys playing with toy guns pose to armed adults.

So, by definition, the home invasion qualifies as analogous to a complication during pregnancy. On the home invasion side, there is legitimate fear that someone's life is in mortal danger by the sheer act of intrusion on private property by a stranger. That said, if it is not considered a intrusion (the stranger was invited) or if it is not a stranger, (before lethal force is used, the resident clearly identifies the subject as someone who has the right to be on the property and in the residence, or through past behavior is considered welcome in the residence) then self-defense is not justified. In the analogy of pregnancy, complications justify a legitimate fear that the mother's life may be in danger if the pregnacy progresses further. The simple fact of pregnancy alone does not. Pregnancy alone is not regarded by most rational adults as a life-threatening condition. There is no reason to assume that the mother's life is or will ever be in danger during a pregnancy until a complication arises.

long winded fool

I think we are talking past each other. There are the reasons that people think they do things, and the reasons that they actually do them.

Take war for instance. How many different reasons are there to go to war? Some short-sighted people might think of quite a few. But, though they are translated differently, are these reasons really different at their core? Is there a difference between a failure to comunicate and revenge? Between a desire for resources and a fear of dying? Between a desire to save lives and a desire to take them? What ultimately does a failure to communicate stem from? Are these really different and individual reasons to go to war against your neighbor?

People do not have sex for any reason other than procreation. They only think they do. I do not claim that it is wrong to have sex for reasons other than procreation, I only point out that believing that the reason you have sex has nothing to do with procreation is naive. You lust for sex solely because you are a member of a species that instinctively procreates. You may actively desire not to procreate, but you are having sex because your body is designed for procreation.

Why is that ludicrous? It makes perfect sense to me. If you really do not want to conceive a human, you can succeed by refraining from having sex. If your desire to have sex outweighs your desire to not be responsible for a human life, then get the best birth control you can find and cross your fingers. Just don't assume that you have the right to abort an accidental conception, because there is no legal or logical justification for this. (Even though, in most societies, it is on the books. The only justification is precedent, and when precedent flies in the face of logic and other laws, it is dangerously close to religious dogma.

I said no such thing.

Nonsense. Pregnancy does not have to be a morally inescapable result of sex for the mother to be charged with murder if she deliberately aborts it. There are all kinds of highly effective forms of birth control out there. No one should be punished for having sex. All humans should have the right to exist, even undesirable ones.

You misunderstand my argument. No socialism is required. The right to life can trump every other right and I can still earn money, own my own property that no one else has a right to but me, and throw away a perfectly good jar of peanut butter while children starve in Ethiopia. Their right to life still trumps my right to property, but that does not mean that I have no right to my property. It means that I cannot kill those Ethiopian children, even if they illegally violate my right to my property. See what I'm saying? It is not the case that making the right to life more powerful and more important than all other rights nullifies those other rights. That is actually what I am arguing against. Rights can only exist in a logical progression starting with the right to exist. I still have a right to my property even if someone right outside my window is starving to death. They cannot force me to give them my property, but I cannot kill them, even if they steal from me, unless it is reasonable to assume that my life is in danger.

I use the word "donation" in the loosest sense. No contract exists between a victim of the urban legend "wake up in a bathtub in a cheap motel room with several organs missing" and the person in whom these illegally obtained organs were transplanted. Yet that person who is using the organs obtained outside of any legal contract still has the right to exist, regardless of the condition of the victim from whom his or her new organs were extracted. Of course, this analogy fails at the self-defense level because a mother's life can be put in jeopardy by the existence of her fetus, whereas the donee can never be murdered for the sake of the donor simply because the donor is now dying from his lack of organs. Only the party that forced the "donation," (the mafia, or in the case of forced pregnancy, the rapist) can be prosecuted.

Stephen_BostonMA

I used statistics simply because you had cited them in an earlier post a while back, to point out that most pregnancies do not end up being fatal to the pregnant woman. While that is true, and while most home invasions do not result in a victim being murdered, we still need to remember:
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But, moving on...

Got it. We will not use statistics anymore to help our arguments. From this point on, we'll go by what most rational adults think. While we're there, since most rational adults do not regard a brainless clump of cells as having any rights that supercede those of an adult woman, we can regard current abortion laws as perfectly acceptable.

long winded fool

Not quite. I addressed this objection in the very post you quote, you simply didn't quote that part. Public opinion doesn't matter until the jury is involved. I use the fact that "most rational adults consider a break-in to be a highly threatening act" simply to explain how the verdict of "self-defense" is arrived at. If a jury concludes that a pregnancy was a threat to a woman's life, then the subsequent abortion would be considered self-defense. The relevant fact is: most rational adults do not consider the condition of pregnancy alone to be life threatening. That is why most parents are excited and overjoyed when their daughter gets pregnant, instead of shocked and dismayed. This is not a defense of illegal abortion, it is an explanation as to how self-defense pleas work. I defend illegal abortion from the notion that "most rational adults do not regard a brainless clump of cells as having any rights that supercede those of an adult woman" by pointing out that, even if true, which is questionable in itself, in the early history of America, most rational adults didn't regard a savage African to have equal rights either, yet to deny human rights in the established laws of society (especially all human rights) to a human that "most rational adults" feel does not deserve them is to weaken the entire concept of human rights.

Good try though.