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I know the subject covers a lot, but they're related issues so the debate always tends to crossover between one and another anyway. I'm going to quote some of the discssion from another thread between myself and Moonwaters to get it started.



But when we come to a case where two people's rights conflict with each other things get sticky. Sure people have the right to control their body to a degree. But they don't have the right to go around hitting others because that violates the rights of the other person. Your rights to control your body are limited by other people's rights to their own.

Then people say that the woman's rights come first because the child is violating her body and they go and cite rape laws. Well for one thing, I find it discussing to compare an act of sick violence to an innocent and unawares child merely trying to cling to life. Secondly there is a huge difference in INTENT. The reason a woman is allowed to use lethal violence against a man attacking her is because he is willfully attacking her and she is acting in self defense. Legally it does make somewhat of a parallel with the laws on trespassing. I don't, and should know the details of the laws better, except I expect it varies, but I know that it is legal to kill a burglar when your life is in danger, but people can also be sued when harm comes to trespassers on their property when the property owner themselves was not being attacked. It seems to me like intent to do harm should be taken into consideration when deciding if it's ok for a person to kill another simply because that second person is trespassing.


I’m going to make a separate thread for parental involvement.

But as for the personhood thing, that is the main reason that I don’t think the current laws hold up any reasonable consistency. To legally define “personhood” based on whether someone is outside of a womb or inside doesn’t make much sense. To determine it based on viability makes even less sense because this line is always changing. The current laws may not acknowledge the fetus as a person, but they can be changed just like legally blacks didn’t used to be persons.

I wanted to reply there, but also move it to its own thread so people browsing threads could find it. So yes, it was about the same thing, but I probably won't reply to this particular topic there again.

Sorry, it's hard to come up with all of the appropriate poll options, but I hoped I'd get close enough.

I also hope that medical technology may some day make abortin unneccessary. But I don't know if that will happen if people don't respect life itself. Some day they will probably be able to remove a fetus and implant them in another woman or perhaps machine to finish growing and then the woman would no longer be needed. I also hope that contraceptives and education will improve, but I know that as long as people keep letting their passions get the better of them, unplanned pregnancy will happen.

You're right that I didn't intend to generalize. Not ALL Pro-Choicers don't respect life. But a lot of them don't. I know people who believe that abortion is murder, but they don't really care. I also think that society in general needs to get more respect for life. THis also applies to people who drive drunk, people who bonb abortion clinics, abuse their children, and murder. I'm not sure if it's worse today than in the past or not, but there is a lot of people out there who just don't care about anyone but themselves.

Isn't life more important then bodily integrity?

I don't know about the law, but almost always the parents have conjoined twins separated at a very young age, due to the great health risk that comes from "usual" conjoined twin issues, like sharing organs (which can't do enough work to support two lives). If they don't share organs, both have the chance to survive after separation, but they are almost always separated long before either is old enough to legally demand separation.

From my way of thinking, if there is a health risk involved (which there almost always is because people aren't made to be stuck together, no matter what Plato thought *wink*), the stronger twin should be able to demand separation. If there is no health risk, and such no stronger twin, either twin should have the legal right to demand separation, but they can actually talk it over with the other twin, something that cannot be done with an unborn human.

Whether it is legal or not, from my point of view it is ethical. Not exactly like pregnancy though, because of the lack of choice involved as you pointed out, and the same length of life for each human involved, and all sorts of other reasons.

But does will and autonomy have any say in this anyway?

Just looking at an accidental pregnancy alone, so much is outside the power of the involved parties. Fetuses do not choose to be conceived, men may not choose to take part in the abortion, and instead, may fight against it. If a women, too, wanted to make alterations to her procedure and her doctor said no (be it for ethical or medical reasons) is she truly in power? Or what about the cost of the abortion? Does her insurance cover it? Isn't she paying for health insurance though? And what if the abortion is supplied by the state? What of the pro-life taxpayers?

I just think that the words "Freedom" is a highly ambiguous term. It is almost fictional too because we are never totally free, we just happen to have "Freedoms to do" things and even then, there are exceptions.

Completely as an aside--

A recent on-campus Pro-life group began to hang up fliers supporting the pro-life cause. This is not the exact word I want to use, however, it's the only one that can come to mind. The fliers were more or less propoganda. they were facts/question ment to evoke people of the pro-choice viewpoint and try to get them to reason differently.

In any case, the Chief Editor of the campus newspaper wrote her opinion article on these fliers and criticized them. She had several points to make, but she very much individualized the abortion struggle by implying it is the individual woman's burden.

Regardless, she still criticized the fliers. Now, the funny thing is none of those fliers were false, I mean, the facts may not have been the best but they all are rooted in truth. Anyway, the group in question had each flier stamped--approved by the Activities board. Those fliers were perfectly fine to hang up and yet she took offense to them and their purpose on campus... she was questioning the group's freedom of speech.

I just find that funny that one party, arguing rights was able to say that, that she was able to criticize the pro-life's side right to put up the fliers.

It just hit me as very, very strange. I guess that's just an example of how, even once you get this mythical "freedom", you'll still probably criticize others' freedoms.

It's very hard to say.

She believed, again, the fliers were insulting, but this was only one of two points. The first, was that she questioned their purposes wondering what good are they. It just felt like she was taking a jab at the group's place on campus and their ability to speak. If the messages were, say, different, she may have been more allowing of them, but she still calling into question the group's expression. And I can tell you certainly that, on the surface, they were NOT insulting. People may have been able to draw inferences, but that would have been it.

Regardless--the faculty is up in arms more then ever. xd There is a massive Administration vs. Everyone Else war going on. It's fun to watch.