The Glade 4.0

Why do you assume the "invitation" is for the full period of gestation? Why can't it be a terminable-at-will kind of thing?

It would seem that if one is using a method of birth control, that it's blatantly obvious that there was no invitation, and further some effort put toward preventing unwanted "guests".

It is a known risk.

It's like signing a waiver when riding a horse to not sue if the horse gets spooked and then the horse gets spooked and you want to sue.

It's one of the explicit and known risks one consents to. I don't get how you don't get this.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

One can mitigate risks all one wishes, however one still bears the consequences of one's actions should those risks come to fruition.

I can by csafety climbing gear, I might still break my arm, I should still have to pay for that broken arm.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

While I would agree that (in the absence of a contract specifying otherwise) you have the right to kick someone out of your house regardless of the consequences to them, there is a crucial difference there. A fetus isn't a moral agent with the faculty of choice. Whether or not you invited them is rather beside the point. They had no choice about being there or not being there. And that makes them something altogether different from either a guest, a squatter, or a trespasser.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Even assuming it IS an invitation (which I dispute), it can be rescinded at will. There is no contract.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It really doesn't matter what they are. Intent doesn't matter...all that matters is whether they are welcome. Absolute authority over a woman's body belongs to that woman.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Sure, I don't disagree. However, one of the ways to "pay for the consequences" is to get an abortion. To be sure, there are other possible options as well, but any of them are valid.

Yes and you exercised that authority by the choice to grant or deny the sex act.

The fetus isn't the body of a woman - its the body of another human. This has been exposed several times yet you continue to fall back on that.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

And I can "pay for the consequence" of lots of an affair I don't want outed with murder - doesn't mean its moral. And since this is a discussion about what is the moral position...

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Sorry, let me backtrack, since Stathol actually did a better job of making the point I had in mind. You keep making analogies to waivers, consents, invitations, contracts, etc., but I don't think those analogies work, because there's no bilateral agreement of any kind between the woman and the fetus. Rather, I think the key is the fact that the woman creates a dangerous situation, and therefore is arguably responsible for preventing any harmful consequences to innocent third parties (i.e. the fetus).

Of course, that assumes the fetus is a person from the moment of conception....

As many times as this same discussion has been dredged up, people keep playing...

Remarkable.

Show of hands... who expect a different conclusion?

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

Heh. Well, we don't play to win; we play to play.

This is the crux of the issue.

A fetus is not a person. It's a person once it's born, until that it's part of the mother.

This. Welcome to the Glade.

These boards are all about wasting time, tweaking the nose of those who believe differently than you and getting away with it because it's the intarwebs.

Again, what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter. It is a fact that pregnancy is caused by sex. And it also a fact that a fetus (at any stage of development) does not have the faculty of either choice or action.

Thus, a more proper analogy might be that you chained someone up in your basement against their will, and then later decided that you were just going to execute them or stop feeding them because don't want to take care of them. No right is absolute. In extraordinary circumstances, even the right to dominion over property must be restricted if it causes involuntary harm to another entity with rights*.

"Whoops, it was an accident" really doesn't cut it. After all, if you damage someone's property accidentally, are not obligated to make restitution?

* Obviously you disagree with this point, but I think I've done all I can to explain why I think that it should from a purely secular point of view.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Based on that statement, you'd be ok abortions any time until the baby breathes outside the womb and the umbilical cord is cut?

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

This is not observationally defensible. Fetuses start having independant thought before actually being delivered and can survive independantly of the mother well before the normal time of delivery and even farther with modern medical assistance. Claiming that a fetus that could survive outside the mother is still part of the mother simply because it's not arrived prematurely is silly.

As for the property analogy, I see no real relevance of any of the analogies of someone in your house. Regardless of how that person arrived in the house, it isn't because you caused them to come into existance in the first place unless its you're child and then the analogy is irrelevant because you are obligated to take care of them anyhow.

If you're going to argue that a right to control over your body means that you should be able to eject a non-viable fetus, fine. But then you can't argue in favor of child support either. Why should the female get to obligate the male to pay for a child she wants to keep if a male cannot obligate a female to deliver a child he wants to keep?

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Actually, I think that goes too far and ends up oversimplifying just as much as the person-at-conception model does. The fetus develops most/all of the elements that make up a human infant long after conception but also long before birth. In my opinion, the decision as to when it's "close enough" to warrant independent moral status and/or legal protection really isn't the kind of issue that has a neat, clean, and obvious answer. Move the bar too close to conception, and you end up limiting the bodily autonomy of women for the sake of a non-sentient and non-feeling mass of cells. Move the bar too close to birth, and you end up killing an entity that is every bit as capable of thought and feeling as a newborn. Personally, I think the bar should be set somewhere in the middle, erring on the side of the fetus/baby, since, as Elmo points out, the woman did choose to create the risk and (in my scenario) would have ample opportunity to choose an abortion prior to the cut-off time.

I missed this somehow while previewing my previous post:

Yes. Finally someone gets it.


It need not assume personhood, as such, just that it has a basic right to life. I understand that this is a point of contention. But if that premise is granted, I believe the rest logically follows. If that right exists, then it becomes a valid limit on the right to whatever you wish your body (which I've never disagreed with). That isn't misogyny or anything of the sort -- it's just a recognition of the basic principle that your right to swing your fist ends with my face.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Agreed, though in my view, the right to life only arises as a result of the fetus' claim to personhood, which, in turn, I consider dependent on the stage of fetal development.

Well again, I think that non bright-line criteria like that only create more problems than they solve. But beyond that, this would imply that rights exist only as long as there is a ambiguous amount of mental activity/complexity. I'm not sure what that's supposed to say about the really profoundly retarded, or say the comatose? I have no desire whatsoever to retread the Schiavo fiasco, which involved specific circumstances. But let's say:

Bob has a living will expressing his desire to be kept alive. Bob has the finances to accommodate that will. Can we nullify that will on the grounds that Bob no longer has personhood, and therefore we can do as we please with his body? The logic being employed with respect to fetuses and rights would seem to suggest that we can.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

No.

I personally feel an abortion is ok for basically any reason up until the fetus would be able to be born and have a good chance of survival. I forget exactly when that is but I believe it's around the last trimester if I recall right. Obviously deciding earlier to end a pregnancy is "better" than later.

After that, I believe that abortions should only be performed if there is a serious medical risk to the mother.

In either case, however the fetus is not a person and should not be considered to have the full rights of being a citizen.

I basically agree with your position, except that the fetus is still not a person until it's born. See my above post.

Only she doesn't create the dangerous situation. Sex without consequences is every bit as much a "right" as "life" is. Which is to say, it's not always possible, but it's nobody else's business. Sex is not "for the purpose of procreation." Sex is for the purpose of sex. Procreation is a nice tie-in to that. Most creatures don't have sex to procreate. With mammals (and several other creature types) they got tied in together.

They cannot be linked in a legal way. Sex is for sex. It is not an implicit agreement to look after a child.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █