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 Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:05 pm
Abortion, largely, is legal because of our right to use lethal force in defense of our bodies (from both lethal threat and threat of grievous harm).
However, a key aspect of lethal force is that it may only be employed if no reasonable alternative exists. Reasonable tends to indicate that you will not put yourself at a greater risk (that is, if someone is raping you and if you hit them to escape they may kill you, hence lethal force is reasonable).
It is possible that one day, with scientific progress, artificial wombs may become a reality.
Assuming, with the development of the artificial womb, a method of transferring a fetus without killing it is also developed (right now it would die nearly immediately upon removal), and performing this transfer was no more strenuous on the body than the equivalent abortion procedure (at least for early term - late term this would be impossible given that the skull is punctured and the brain removed, making in-tact removal impossible). Also assume that all costs of gestation are covered by the state and you are in no way obligated to the child once born...
Should abortion, opting to kill the fetus rather than transfer it, still be permissible?
My opinion - it depends on the nature of the fetus.
If the fetus is a person, clearly abortion is no longer permissible being that lethal force is not necessary to end the infraction, and by doing so you expose yourself to no higher risk. Your right to your body ends with your body. If the fetus is a person and the alternative as I state it above exists, then its right to bodily autonomy would protect it, making abortion the equivalent of premeditated murder (the law would/should not see it as self-defense). Oddly enough this would permit late term abortions, but not early term... It would have the strange consequence of causing women to truly want to kill the fetus wait for a riskier procedure and I would also consider doing that premediated murder since their goal was to kill a person.
If the fetus is not a person there is no trouble. The fetus would amount to nothing more than property, or an object within the woman's body, and as such opting to have it removed would be of no more consequence than having a cancer or a mole removed. The impact of an artificial womb would be non-existent where a fetus is not a person.
Should such a future come to fruition the course of the abortion debate would no longer stem on the bodily autonomy of the woman (although that would still be an integral issue), but rather the nature of the fetus.
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:11 pm
Under self-defense, if the fetus is residing in the woman's body, it is subject to immediate removal, even if transfer is possible. The fetus is the aggressor, and the only possible method of self-defense is removal - and anything after is really somebody else's problem.
It's like the whole homeless person analogy. I'm not obligated to find him a halfway house if it's ten below and a blizzard is going on outside. If he broke into my house and is living there without my permission, I have every right to pitch him out the door into a snowbank, because he's trespassing. If you can pitch someone out your front door into deadly cold for trespassing on your property, what stops you having that same right with your body?
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:33 pm
Lord Setar Under self-defense, if the fetus is residing in the woman's body, it is subject to immediate removal, even if transfer is possible. The fetus is the aggressor, and the only possible method of self-defense is removal - and anything after is really somebody else's problem. I completely agree. The crux of the question(s) I am asking, and perhaps I was too vague with it, was this - 1. You have the right to have the fetus removed - no questions asked about this. But can you choose to kill it via modern abortion instead of removing it in tact via the hypothetical procedure should that alternative exist and be no more strenuous than killing it (e.g. there is an alternative to lethal force that puts you at no greater risk, it may possibly have even less risk)? 2. If removal of the fetus in tact is possible, or even the future of the abortion procedure (hey, no risk of pieces left behind to rot!), should a woman be able to decide what happens to the fetus after it is removed and no longer infringing on her body if it is a legal person?
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:50 pm
Talon-chan Lord Setar Under self-defense, if the fetus is residing in the woman's body, it is subject to immediate removal, even if transfer is possible. The fetus is the aggressor, and the only possible method of self-defense is removal - and anything after is really somebody else's problem. I completely agree. The crux of the question(s) I am asking, and perhaps I was too vague with it, was this - 1. You have the right to have the fetus removed - no questions asked about this. But can you choose to kill it via modern abortion instead of removing it in tact via the hypothetical procedure should that alternative exist and be no more strenuous than killing it (e.g. there is an alternative to lethal force that puts you at no greater risk, it may possibly have even less risk)? 2. If removal of the fetus in tact is possible, or even the future of the abortion procedure (hey, no risk of pieces left behind to rot!), should a woman be able to decide what happens to the fetus after it is removed and no longer infringing on her body if it is a legal person? 1. That depends on the situation. If it would be favorable to the child to have it grow to term then be placed for adoption or in the care of family, then a case could be made to let it live. However, it is entirely in the custody of its parents - and besides, the technology to keep it alive will likely be paid for by the parents. If the parents do not want it put up for adoption, or it wouldn't be in the child's best interest to go up for adoption (we all know the flaws with the system) then I say the parents have final right of decision. They're the ones paying to keep it alive and let it develop unless someone else wishes to take full custody, and if they can't afford to let it develop why should they be forced to do so? 2. Yes, due to child custody. The woman, as the mother, is automatically granted first right of custody. Unless she relinquishes custody or is deemed unfit through due process, she calls the shots, because the child has no capacity to decide for itself what it wants. There should be no question here, as the law would be the same as with a born child or someone in a vegetative state. Closest next of kin - I believe it goes spouse, then parent if the spouse is not present/deceased/unfit, then on down the line, unless the patient has specifically denoted someone else as their proxy in a legal will or equivalent. Since there is no capacity to write a will and the child obviously has no spouse, it goes to the parents. (I have to go now, my mom's kicking me off x-x)
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