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 Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:48 pm
Okay, so here's a thought that occurred to me (while I was watching Planet of the Apes, no less):
Facts:
-Fetus =/= person
At least legally at this point.
-Woman has a right to kill a person that is violating her bodily integrity (be it unwanted fetus or rapist)
-Fetus doesn't get rights as it's not a fetus (and the right to bodily integrity trumps others' rights anyways)
My thought:
If a fetus doesn't get the protections of a person because it legally isn't one, then why is it expected to be under the laws of bodily integrity (which say that someone can kill a person if that's the only way to stop the violation)?
I mean, why is a fetus expected to be subject to some laws and not others?
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:58 pm
Feti are different, in my oppinion, because they cannot simply choose to leave, nor did they choose to be.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:42 am
The bacteria attacking my body right now do not fall under the legal definition of persons, yet I am killing them. It is my right to defend my body. If a fetus was not a human, I would fully support abortion as an option for the same reason.
That situation of "No person can violate another person's body," usually comes up after, "Even if we suppose a fetus is a person..."
If a fetus is not a person, and does not deserve rights, then the argument of bodily integrity isn't needed for the same reason that it is not illegal to take medicine to kill microbes or butcher animals for food. If it's not a person, it doesn't have the right to live, legally.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:36 am
Where are you destroying your own argument? XD
For your first question, one of the thoughts of pro-life is that feti should get legal personhood.
For your second question, a fetus isn't technically doing anything illegal, and usually you can only use self defense on someone that's doing something illegal. This could be fixed by criminalizing unwanted feti, but there are a few issues with that.
First of all, it would be illegalizing something that no one can possibly be held responsible for (people under the age of criminal responsibility can't be held responsible for any crime), which wouldn't make any sense.
Second of all, usually, when you do something that would normally be illegal, but in a situation where it couldn't be helped by your own power, then you can't be held responsible. One example would be if you are driving and someone suddenly runs in front of you and you don't have enough time to slow down. Even if you kill that person, you can't be held responsible. The same can be said about the unborn, they have no power to the "violation".
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:16 am
As Pyro would say, personhood doesn't really mean anything. *wink*
I mean, there is legal personhood, which states in the US that born and naturalized citizens and corporations are all persons. And there is philosophical personhood which has many different definitions (depending on which philosophy is used). And there is the "normal" term, which just uses "person" to refer to any human.
I believe that argument is:
"If unborn humans aren't people, and don't have any rights, then there is nothing that stands in the way of abortion. And if they were given the legal status of "person", then a pregnant woman would still have the right to control her own body, and get an abortion."
Or something like that.
Personally (*wink*), I am not sure if legal personhood should be extended to unborn humans or not. It already is, in a few states and in the military (if a pregnant military lady is assaulted or murdered - the unborn human is considered a separate person in the charges). I think that, as the law is in some places, that a viable unborn human (as determined by current medical ability to save a premature born human) should be given the status of legal person. But before viability, I am unsure.
Of course, I don't believe that anything but life-saving emergency abortions should be done after viability (since the woman has other options available to remove the unborn human without resulting in its death). So that probably clouds my view on that.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:09 pm
Thats not just a military law Waters, thats federal, and applies only if she was intending to keep the pregnancy
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:18 pm
Tiger of the Fire Thats not just a military law Waters, thats federal, and applies only if she was intending to keep the pregnancy Not the one I read...which I can't find. Maybe there are two different acts? Or maybe I'm mistaken...
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 8:10 pm
I've been debating in the abortion thread recently, and Miranda put a spotlight (in another thread) about how, if we can subject the unborn child to bodily integrity laws, it also gets protection under self-defence laws. And a whole bunch of other laws, on top of that.
Like seraph said, it didn't choose to be there. And it can't leave. How else can it be expected to defend itself?
When you think critically, about the fact that it's two -people- in the situation, things become harder to justify. That's probably why I'm pro-life.
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:01 am
WatersMoon110 Tiger of the Fire Thats not just a military law Waters, thats federal, and applies only if she was intending to keep the pregnancy Not the one I read...which I can't find. Maybe there are two different acts? Or maybe I'm mistaken... I think you are mistaken. A man who hits a pregnant women, and she miscarries, and its found to to his abuse, the law can find him guilty of man slaughter. I think thats about as far as it goes though.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:38 am
Tiger of the Fire WatersMoon110 Tiger of the Fire Thats not just a military law Waters, thats federal, and applies only if she was intending to keep the pregnancy Not the one I read...which I can't find. Maybe there are two different acts? Or maybe I'm mistaken... I think you are mistaken. A man who hits a pregnant women, and she miscarries, and its found to to his abuse, the law can find him guilty of man slaughter. I think thats about as far as it goes though. The Act I am thinking of states that killing a pregnant military person counts as two murders because the unborn human has the same rights as a born human. I'm pretty sure. I was given a link to it on another site, and it would be very time consuming to track down. But I can try, sometime later (maybe tomorrow - when I only have one class).
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