[InsaneBaron]

Well then, Scotty, I think we might be able to finally get to the core of the matter.

The right to have control over one's own body is the most important right.  All other rights must eventually stem from this one.  This ideal is human self-expression in the most basic sense.  Bodily Integrity, the concept of being ultimately and personally responsible for every part of one's own body.

I can't find anything in this definition that I actually disagree with. But here's the problem: it has to be applied consistently. It seems pretty clear that if your body is destroyed, and you have no choice in the matter, this is very clearly a violation of the above defined right. You acknowledged in the previous thread that you applied this right to an unborn baby when we both agreed that selling said baby's organs was wrong. But how, then, is the baby's right to bodily integrity intact if said baby's body is destroyed?

[Bobboau]

I still have yet to hear a good explanation for why a lump of undifferentiated cells is a baby.

I know the response is that it will become a person, but that is an admission that it isn't yet a person. In no other case can I think of is treating a thing as what it will be rather than what it is presently considered remotely rational. it's like the concept of time is thrown out the window for the sake of the presupposed conclusion.

I don't think a distinction between who's rights take priority is the core of the matter because even lower level than that is this, the disagreement about how many "who"s are involved.

Maybe we should make several threads on the subject because there are multiple arguments going on with different premises. maybe one about when personhood starts and a separate one where the thread presupposes as a given that personhood starts at some arbitrary point, and a few others for other similar sub-arguments.

[InsaneBaron]

I still have yet to hear a good explanation for why a lump of undifferentiated cells is a baby.

I know the response is that it will become a person, but that is an admission that it isn't yet a person. In no other case can I think of is treating a thing as what it will be rather than what it is presently considered remotely rational. it's like the concept of time is thrown out the window for the sake of the presupposed conclusion.

I don't think a distinction between who's rights take priority is the core of the matter because even lower level than that is this, the disagreement about how many "who"s are involved.

Note that I directed this post to Scotty, who had already acknowledged that the baby deserved some kind of rights. Before I can engage your position I need to know when you, specifically, believe that a fetus becomes a human with rights.

[Scotty]

Ultimately?  Irrelevant.  If the woman decides that she will no longer provide her uterus to the fetus, than that's the final say in the matter.  You cannot preserve rights by violating rights; it's paradoxical.  If you decide that the woman must carry the fetus to term, then you are violating her bodily integrity.  Period.  It's unacceptable.  Violating her rights in order to attempt to preserve rights is an exercise in hypocrisy.

And you're still not using "bodily integrity" right.  It has nothing to do with the integrity of the body, despite the name, which is the impression I'm still getting from you.

EDIT: And now thanks to the wonders of retail, I need to get to bed.  My responses will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.

[InsaneBaron]

Ultimately?  Irrelevant.  If the woman decides that she will no longer provide her uterus to the fetus, than that's the final say in the matter.  You cannot preserve rights by violating rights; it's paradoxical.  If you decide that the woman must carry the fetus to term, then you are violating her bodily integrity.  Period.  It's unacceptable.  Violating her rights in order to attempt to preserve rights is an exercise in hypocrisy.

And you're still not using "bodily integrity" right.  It has nothing to do with the integrity of the body, despite the name, which is the impression I'm still getting from you.

A. But by aborting the baby, you are violating the baby's rights to preserve the perceived rights of the mother. And the baby is not merely providing bodily support to another person, it's having it's bodily completely stolen, a much larger violation. The alternative is simply to wait a brief time until the two rights are no longer in conflict, and both parties can leave alive and well.

B. A clarifying question, then. If you or I were killed and dismembered by an ISIS member, then it's pretty clear that the ISIS member is violating our right to life. Is he also violating our right to bodily integrity, under your definition?

EDIT: Ninja'd about retail. Better get back to studying myself.

[Bobboau]

@InsaneBaron
I do not believe that it happens at a singular given point of time but rather that it happens gradually over the course of the first year and a half post birth. I would be willing to accept a baby lacks personhood for several months post birth but would feel it appropriate to grant it the most basic of rights (life) during this time due to the fact it is certainly alive and highly valued by definite persons during this period. I would be willing to push these rights back a month or two in exchange for an end to this argument, but there is no one who has the authority to make that deal on behalf of all pro-lifers, but for the sake of argument we can pretend that you have such authority if you would like. As for now, for practical matters, to be on the safe side, and the reasons mentioned above I make an arbitrary line for effective personhood at birth even though I think the evidence for this is flimsy at best.

[GhylTarvoke]

... Drawing the line at birth isn't on the safe side at all. Anything past that point would be extreme.

[Scotty]

Ultimately?  Irrelevant.  If the woman decides that she will no longer provide her uterus to the fetus, than that's the final say in the matter.  You cannot preserve rights by violating rights; it's paradoxical.  If you decide that the woman must carry the fetus to term, then you are violating her bodily integrity.  Period.  It's unacceptable.  Violating her rights in order to attempt to preserve rights is an exercise in hypocrisy.

And you're still not using "bodily integrity" right.  It has nothing to do with the integrity of the body, despite the name, which is the impression I'm still getting from you.

A. But by aborting the baby, you are violating the baby's rights to preserve the perceived rights of the mother. And the baby is not merely providing bodily support to another person, it's having it's bodily completely stolen, a much larger violation. The alternative is simply to wait a brief time until the two rights are no longer in conflict, and both parties can leave alive and well.

B. A clarifying question, then. If you or I were killed and dismembered by an ISIS member, then it's pretty clear that the ISIS member is violating our right to life. Is he also violating our right to bodily integrity, under your definition?

A) You have your descriptions backwards.  You're violating the mother's rights to avoid violatin the perceived rights of the fetus (it's not a baby until it's born!).  Which is leaving aside the fact that you're still violating rights.  You're also declaring that the fetus is worth more than a current, living, breathing human being.  And I would absolutely love to hear you tell somebody who wants to get an abortion that you're going to violate their rights for "only" nine relatively unpleasant months in order to force her to have a baby she doesn't want and possibly can't care for.

If a man needed a kidney, but only for nine months until a new one can be cloned and grown and the donate returned (magic medical advancement for the sake of example here) or he would die, a man who had a perfect match with him would not be obligated to provide it.  He cannot be forced to do so.  The duration is utterly irrelevant.  It does not ****ing matter how long or short it lasts, telling someone that they do not have the right to their own body parts is unconscionable.

B) Can we cut it out with the hypotheticals?  I've been pretty clear on exactly what bodily integrity means, how far it extends, and to whom it extends.  But if you absolutely insist: the act of killing someone, believe it or not, does not violate bodily integrity.  That's not what bodily integrity means. 

The right to have control over one's own body is the most important right.  All other rights must eventually stem from this one.  This ideal is human self-expression in the most basic sense.  Bodily Integrity, the concept of being ultimately and personally responsible for every part of one's own body.

This is what bodily integrity means.  It says absolutely nothing about harm.  It says absolutely nothing about actual, physical integrity.  It doesn't give a single **** whether the body in question is alive or dead, and sure as hell doesn't care if it's been destroyed.  This is because it's not (in the grand scheme of things) a physical idea.  Bodily integrity is being allowed to assume responsibility for one's own body. (You may also note that I have never once used the phrase 'right to life'.)

A fetus cannot survive outside of a uterus before it is carried to term (or reasonably close).  If a woman decides that she does not agree to having the baby in her uterus, the fact that the fetus is non-viable outside of it does not matter.

If you don't understand it by now, nothing I can say or explain will make you.

[Bobboau]

... Drawing the line at birth isn't on the safe side at all. Anything past that point would be extreme.

maybe I worded that overly conservative... to be clear, that is the lower bound for personhood. Not all rights are necessarily dependent on that. I say effective personhood because once the conflict of rights is resolved whatever you want to call a baby's status at that point it's certainly deserving of effectively the same rights as any other person, even if it isn't a person (I'm saying here the distinction is moot), simply due to the combination of the fact it is simply alive and highly valued by definite persons. Value placed by persons is why I consider pets to have higher rights than livestock which have higher rights than wild animals.

[GhylTarvoke]

OK, that makes me less worried.

[karajorma]

A. But by aborting the baby, you are violating the baby's rights to preserve the perceived rights of the mother.

Even if I agreed with this argument (which I don't) you're making a massive assumption here that you've not really addressed. Why should the foetus (which is completely dependent on the mother for its entire existence) automatically have the same rights as the mother?

It's not like we don't already grant children fewer rights than adults on the basis that parents are responsible for them.

[666maslo666]

I thought I was being pretty clear about bodily integrity earlier.

So did I, which is why I'm now terribly confused that you think it's immoral to exercise your bodily autonomy if it causes pain to a foetus.

There is no contradiction here when you realize that just because something is a right does not mean it also has to be moral. I can exercise my bodily autonomy by becoming a drunk and it is my right and yet it is certainly immoral, too. Just not immoral enough to be illegal. I dont share Scottys opinion on abortion but this criticism is not valid, IMHO.

Anyway, in late term the pregnancy can usually be ended without killing the foetus, because it is viable. Thats why argument about bodily autonomy becomes much weaker in third trimester. At the same time, the argument that the foetus is now a person becomes much stronger because it is a lot more developed.

I think these two facts are really why most pro-choice people are only pro-choice in early-term, myself included.

[karajorma]

At the same time, the argument that the foetus is now a person becomes much stronger because it is a lot more developed.

As the foetus becomes more developed I would argue that it gains more rights. I have no issue with an 8 cell embryo being used for medical research. I doubt you can find anyone who would say the same at 8 month old.

[Grizzly]

An 8 month old fetus can survive outside the mother thanks to advancements in medical tech. Could it at that point be considered a baby and as such being a person with rights?
It's the line the Christian parties in the Netherlands are going for: As soon as a fetus is old enough to survive outside the mother's body, that's where the line between baby and fetus is drawn. This seems like a reasonable compromise.

[InsaneBaron]

Scotty, I could say that you're violating the rights of the baby to protect the rights of the mother, but I already said that, and we could throw those two arguments back and forth at eachother until the Shivans glass Earth without getting anywhere. Even if I stipulate that pregnancy is a violation of the mother's rights (I have qualms about so labeling an essential part of human propagation), the violation of the baby's rights is far greater than the violation of the mother's rights; the little guy is losing literally everything.


Thanks for clarifying your definition of Bodily Integrity, but the problem is, this definition isn't consistent. If A. Bodily Integrity requires that I have jurisdiction of my body, and B. A person can destroy my body, it's self-contradictory to claim that my bodily integrity is intact. Doesn't bodily integrity include the right to keep my heart beating? No one would claim that stealing was a violation of the right to property, but vandalism wasn't.

[karajorma]

the violation of the baby's rights is far greater than the violation of the mother's rights

Once again, you're assuming equal rights.

[Scotty]

Scotty, I could say that you're violating the rights of the baby to protect the rights of the mother, but I already said that, and we could throw those two arguments back and forth at eachother until the Shivans glass Earth without getting anywhere. Even if I stipulate that pregnancy is a violation of the mother's rights (I have qualms about so labeling an essential part of human propagation), the violation of the baby's rights is far greater than the violation of the mother's rights; the little guy is losing literally everything.


Thanks for clarifying your definition of Bodily Integrity, but the problem is, this definition isn't consistent. If A. Bodily Integrity requires that I have jurisdiction of my body, and B. A person can destroy my body, it's self-contradictory to claim that my bodily integrity is intact. Doesn't bodily integrity include the right to keep my heart beating? No one would claim that stealing was a violation of the right to property, but vandalism wasn't.

You're assuming second order effects are equivalent to first order effects (especially when it comes to abortion). They are not.

The (ideal) goal (that I'm basing my entire definition on) during an abortion is not "kill the fetus".  The goal is "remove the fetus from the uterus".  The fact that the fetus cannot survive outside the uterus is a regrettable second order effect.

An abortion does not violate the fetus's bodily integrity.  Using the parts afterward arguably does (and I think I've stated my position on that a couple times).

[InsaneBaron]

the violation of the baby's rights is far greater than the violation of the mother's rights

Once again, you're assuming equal rights.

And you're assuming one isn't a human being. Check this out:
http://www.prolifehumanists.org/

Look, what distinguishes an unborn baby from, say, me? Biological differences? There's an immense biological difference between me and a newborn; there's an even bigger biological difference between me and a woman; neither of these have any moral relevance. Consciousness or intelligence, like Bobb suggested? The difference in consciousness between me and a newborn is an order of magnitude greater than the difference between a newborn and an unborn. None of that has any moral relevance. It's still a human being, created equal, with certain, unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[InsaneBaron]

You're assuming second order effects are equivalent to first order effects (especially when it comes to abortion). They are not.

The (ideal) goal (that I'm basing my entire definition on) during an abortion is not "kill the fetus".  The goal is "remove the fetus from the uterus".  The fact that the fetus cannot survive outside the uterus is a regrettable second order effect.

Why does that matter? Both are still effects of the action, and an abortion that did not kill the unborn would be considered a failure. If I throw a rock at another rock, and that rock rolls into a rock, and that rock rolls into a rock, until all the rocks come crashing down the mountain and flatten your house, and I knew that would happen, I've just vandalized your house.

[FrikgFeek]

Using that kind of retarded logic you'd have to also force people to donate blood if people are dying when there's not enough compatible blood available.

It's really not your responsibility to care for another person's well being. If medicine ever finds a way then it will be on the state, NOT YOU, to preserve that foetus.