Brian Peacock wrote:Seth wrote:Brian Peacock wrote:Seth wrote:
In sum, there is nothing in Libertarian theory that precludes a Libertarian society from using force or compulsion to cause an individual to meet his or her voluntarily undertaken obligations or to prevent the individual from initiating force or fraud upon any other person.
OK. So you see the state of being pregnant as necessarily invoking a de facto state-enforcible obligation to remain pregnant and go to term regardless of circumstances and/or the wishes of the mother.
No, I see that getting pregnant may result in the acceptance of an obligation to gestate and deliver the child. I did not say "regardless of the circumstances."
If you think there are any exemption conditions from this enforced obligation what are they, and why?
Why don't you state an exception and I'll tell you if I agree.
WTF? You just said that your view does not entail an enforced obligation "regardless of the circumstances" - and yet you are unwilling, or unable, to outline circumstances where it does not apply. Why would you want me to tell you which exceptions apply to your proposition? It's your argument, you defend it.
I am defending it. You should assume that my default position is that any abortion should be presumed to be wrong unless and until the reasons for allowing such an act are justified by a strong rational and moral argument, just as I presume that the killing of any human being is presumptively unjust and must be rationally justified in order for it to be allowable.
Seth wrote:One thing I don't agree on is that "the wishes of the mother" without further justification, necessity or review being adequate justification for interfering with the interests of the fetus, the father of the child, or the state, as they may appear.
I get that, but don't you also think a person owns themselves, has responsibility for and control over their own being, and that the State cannot legitimately grant itself ownership and control of a persons organs and body parts?
Yes.
Would you allow the State to control your liver or tongue or testicles and enforce an obligation upon you about what you can or should do with them, for example?
Well, yes, to some extent. For example I have no problem with the state telling anyone that they cannot put their tongue into someone else's bodily orifices without permission or that they cannot sell their liver to someone else if doing so would turn them into a burden on the state.
Presuming that you think that a person has ownership and control of their own being, what is so different about a uterus that we should grant the State an enforcible right to wrest ownership of and control over what goes on in there?
The existence of a unique new genetically distinct living human being in utero of course. One's control over one's own body ceases to be plenary when one voluntarily undertakes to host a new, unique genetically distinct living human being within one's body. The creation of the zygote creates a duty to that human being because the acts undertaken voluntarily that create that living human being are both voluntary and have known potential consequences. When one takes voluntary actions that impact or implicate the rights or interests of others one is agreeing to certain contractual obligations with respect to those activities. If you agree to give a friend a ride in your car, you accept an implied (and legally enforceable) duty to drive in a reasonable and safe manner and not to recklessly endanger your passengers. Your option to avoid that responsibility is not to offer others a ride in your car.
You may think of the uterus as the equivalent of a car in that when the woman chooses to host a zygote et al in her uterus by inviting a fertile male to deposit sperm inside her vagina during the time when she is fertile, which creates a known risk of pregnancy, she imposes upon herself a duty and obligation to the new living human being she participated in creating, whether or not she anticipated or planned to do so. Her option is, of course, not to engage in sexual conduct when there is any chance of creating a living zygote.
Her right to plenary control of her body is qualified by her own actions and the natural consequences thereof. If she chooses to step off a cliff without a parachute the natural consequences are that she is likely to fall to her death. Sexual activity is no different. She engages in sex for whatever reason she chooses, exercising her plenary control of her body as she likes, but must endure the consequences of her actions and not expect society to relieve or protect her from those consequences.
If she gets voluntarily intoxicated she has that right, but the consequences are that she is prohibited from driving a car while so intoxicated. As we see, her choices and conduct can and do routinely limit her plenary right to control her body and abortion is absolutely no different.
The common misperception of pro-abortionists is not that a woman should have control over her body but rather that society should defer to her and authorize ways of freeing her from the consequences of her autonomous choices for no better reason than that she demands that society does so. That's irrational in the extreme. Society is under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to conform it's morality, as reflected in its laws, to pander to the convenience and desire for consequence-free sexual pleasure by permitting the woman to kill the living human being she participated in creating. If the society finds that its interests in protecting the developing child outweigh the woman's desire for consequence-free sexual pleasure (something not guaranteed by the US Constitution), then society is perfectly entitled to forbid abortion entirely.
The woman's choice over her body is not implicated at all because she is still free to choose whether to risk pregnancy or not by assenting to or declining sexual activity. If she assents and becomes pregnant as a result, then she has voluntarily constrained her range of choices in dealing with the consequences of her first actions, having been previously informed that if she becomes pregnant she will not be granted dispensation to kill the living human being she participated in creating.
Constraining the choices of the individual where those choices impact others is entirely consistent with Libertarian theory. The root dispute is, of course, whether there are others who are impacted by the choice of a woman to abort a fetus. Clearly there are, and they include the State, the father, and the fetus itself.
You may do as you please with your body, so long as you don't initiate force or fraud upon others in the process. Abortion does both and therefore the argument of "my body, my choice" is simple fallacy.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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