A Woman's Right to her Body

[JimmyNic]

I found this snippet on reddit and wondered what you lot made of it.

No one should be compelled by the government to keep another person alive with their body against their will.

If someone attached me to an adult man with liver failure and he began to use me as a human dialysis machine, could the government use force to keep me attached? No. My body is my body, and I own the CHOICE to decide who uses it.

This analogy relates to abortion. Is it a good one? Something bugs me about it but I can't put my finger on it.

Edit: The poster means kidney Dialysis, and the argument can be rephrased like so:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/P...02/thomson.htm

The problem I have with this analogy is that falling pregnant is somewhat different to being kidnapped. You might not intend to get pregnant, but you engaged in an activity that you should be aware might result in pregnancy (and if you aren't aware of this you should not be having sex). Although I don't believe that an embryo counts as a human being, it if did I would say that the woman has a moral obligation to carry that embryo to full term, since she took the risk of creating it and is therefore responsible for it (along with the man).

[Apeman81]

I found this snippet on reddit and wondered what you lot made of it.



This analogy relates to abortion. Is it a good one? Something bugs me about it but I can't put my finger on it.

The analogy is of no value.

Human design is such that offspring gestate within the mother.

There is no such design that dictates humans attach to each other for dialysis.

[el ايمان]

I agree that the analogy is bunk. There is another analogy like this on this forum that compares a person's mother to a person's fetus (along the lines of "Could you kill your mother? No? Then how could you kill a fetus"). The difference being that a person's interactions with a fetus are dissimilar to a person's interactions with their mother or with another person who has failing kidneys.

[crimethinker]

The analogy assumes that a fetus is a person, or human being, or "a life", whatever you want to call it. It isn't by any reasonable definition. But you can have unreasonable ones. Then it works.

[ironeagle]

@crimethinker: your argument is wrong and has been scientifically proven false. The law and science recognize the fetus as a living human being therefore it is a live and is being murdered upon abortion. I've probably said this a hundred times, people have to convince themselves the fetus isn't a baby so they don't have to fell guilty that they murdered an defenseless baby, women presume they have the right to make decisions about another persons body, the baby, but assert that other people do not have a right to make or force decisions upon theirs, living in denial by a hypocritical creed.

[Yarn]

The law doesn't say personhood begins at conception nor can medical science or the law answer a moral question. Medical science can inform the moral question, but it still depends upon what qualifications you require in order to consider something a person. If one of your requirements is a mind, then personhood cannot begin at conception because there is no mind until their is a brain. Even once the brain exists, it doesn't function as such until brain waves start, and that doesn't happen till the 5th to 6th month.

[Apeman81]

The law doesn't say personhood begins at conception nor can medical science or the law answer a moral question. Medical science can inform the moral question, but it still depends upon what qualifications you require in order to consider something a person. If one of your requirements is a mind, then personhood cannot begin at conception because there is no mind until their is a brain. Even once the brain exists, it doesn't function as such until brain waves start, and that doesn't happen till the 5th to 6th month.

Not true. The law does allow for the charge of murder to be applied to an attacker of a pregnant women that does kill the unborn child.

[Yarn]

Not true. The law does allow for the charge of murder to be applied to an attacker of a pregnant women that does kill the unborn child.

Fair point, but only in certain juristictions, and the fact abortion rights for the first trimester are universally protected by constitutional case law means that the law is at best/worst inconsistent.

The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on Federal properties, against certain Federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism.

Unborn Victims of Violence Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At anyrate, law in general can no sooner answer a moral question than the Jim Crow laws can.

[finder]

I found this snippet on reddit and wondered what you lot made of it.



This analogy relates to abortion. Is it a good one? Something bugs me about it but I can't put my finger on it.

Edit: The poster means kidney Dialysis, and the argument can be rephrased like so:



Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion

The problem I have with this analogy is that falling pregnant is somewhat different to being kidnapped. You might not intend to get pregnant, but you engaged in an activity that you should be aware might result in pregnancy (and if you aren't aware of this you should not be having sex). Although I don't believe that an embryo counts as a human being, it if did I would say that the woman has a moral obligation to carry that embryo to full term, since she took the risk of creating it and is therefore responsible for it (along with the man).

Bottom line is women do have a choice as you alluded. It's her responsibility once she makes the choice to engage in sexual activity.

[minorwork]

Bottom line is women do have a choice as you alluded. It's her responsibility once she makes the choice to engage in sexual activity.

But the woman changes her mind, takes a contraceptive then engages in sexual activity. Has each time you've had sex resulted in a term pregnancy? Not me.

Who makes it the woman's responsibility to carry to term? You? The woman is in the driver's seat on this one. As long as war and state executions exist the issue is who is to have the final say over who lives or dies. For whatever reason the mother has, I support her authority over her body. Any other's claim to her body reeks of misogyny enslaving her to an unwanted condition of her body. If she would bear a child while the state demanded she abort, I support her decision and not the state. As a morally responsible person the mother can tolerate rules or ignore them.

[seyorni]

The analogy assumes that a fetus is a person, or human being, or "a life", whatever you want to call it. It isn't by any reasonable definition. But you can have unreasonable ones. Then it works.

But debate hinges on definition. "Life," "human," and "person" are different concepts, with differing claims to moral consideration.

@crimethinker: your argument is wrong and has been scientifically proven false. The law and science recognize the fetus as a living human being therefore it is a live and is being murdered upon abortion.

Assuming, as a hypothetical, that a foetus is a human being, do you argue that it's the quality of humanness that precludes killing it? If so, do you also extend this to other humans such as enemies in war or condemned criminals?

At anyrate, law in general can no sooner answer a moral question than the Jim Crow laws can.

Amen brother. Law is capricious and mercurial. It should never be confused with morality or with right and wrong.

For whatever reason the mother has, I support her authority over her body. Any other's claim to her body reeks of misogyny enslaving her to an unwanted condition of her body.

But that's the whole point. The foetus is not her body. It's an entirely separate, genetically distinct, parasitic organism.

[minorwork]

Not true. The law does allow for the charge of murder to be applied to an attacker of a pregnant women that does kill the unborn child.

In that case the mother's will has been rendered moot by her attacker. The attacker was as guilty as the state or any other of an intrusion against the mother's will. The mother's role is primary and so is her decision. Any other credo functions to enslave the mother to the will of the state or some other do gooder who has no business intruding disruptively into her state of affairs.

Who could be so viciously self-righteous to advocate force feeding a mother and tying her to a gurney until the delivery and then execute her for pursuing an abortion? Claimants?