The reason people keep disagreeing with you is because you are engaging in hyperbole. There is a difference between a fetus and an already-born person, but to state that they have nothing more in common than a spleen (human organ) and a garden hose (inanimate object) is stretching it a tad. A fetus is an organism (perhaps dependent on its host, but still a separate organism), and it is an organism with human DNA. That right there gives it far more in common with an already-born person than a spleen could ever have with a garden hose. Or than a spleen has with an entire human, for that matter.
If you want to discuss the nuances of abortion ethics, go for it…it’s hardly a cut and dried issue. But these sweeping statements don’t help convince anyone of anything.
It isn’t. It’s treated as a belief. If I were a pregnant woman seeking an abortion, my belief that my fetus is not a person would prevail within my private realm. If it’s not a fact that a fetus is a person, then a law against abortion would amount to someone else imposing thei belifs on me, and that’s unjust.
What about innocent until proven guilty? Those accusing a person of a crime must prove thier case before it can be treated as a fact that he’s guilty and thus shold go to jail. The default position is that he’s innocent. It’s not a fact that he committed no crime, but in the absence of the fact of his guilt, his own assertion of his innocence prevails.
Yes but an organism with no brain, no brain no humanity.
The DNA it possess is a recipe a blueprint on how it make a human being. Just about every cell in your body trillions of them have the DNA information to make a human as the cloning process has demonstrated.
This is a religious issue, you as a Catholic believe a soul makes a human being and that soul is zapped in at conception. It may be your theology but it is not what is demonstrated.
Using another person’s body without their consent is a crime. If the fetus has an implied contract because the woman had sex, the contract is illegal and unenforceable. To saya fetus has that right is giving it a right that no other human being has or should have.
Without in any way intending this to speak for my position on abortion, I’d like to note that there are non-religious reasons to believe that it’s socially important to treat human life as inherently worthy even when it cannot express or fight for its own worth.
Certainly, but what you’re getting into here is the difference between actual fact, and attempts at discovering that fact, and presumption upon which fact will later affect.
The default position fact-wise is always to start off with an unknown. To say that we don’t know one way or the other. When it comes to law, however, we don’t have a situation where something is unknowable because we can’t treat it as though we don’t know. A fetus has to be presumed to be a person or not a person because there is no way to treat it as if we do not know. It either needs to be treated as one, or need not.
The problem is that that we have to presume things doesn’t mean that we have to presume them that way. I could say that a fetus being human means we should presume that it is a person. Or that the potential results if so, murder, are worse enough than the alternative that a presumption of personhood is reasonable. I personally do not consider those arguments persuasive, but in terms of debate and argument while it can be reasonable to say there’s already a presumption which needs to be argued against rather than for, it’s not so clear as to which side the immediate presumption goes to.
Only if people do not believe that it is that ability to express and comprehend the need to fight or an understanding of worth is that which is considered to have worth.
To be clear I am firmly pro-choice so the following is just to help sharpen the argument and not meant to disparage the pro-choice cause.
I do not see why the woman would not have an implied contract in this case. The fetus did not ask to use her womb, it did not jump from around a corner and climb in to use her body against her will. The woman made the choice that put the fetus there through no action or desire on the part of the fetus (or zygote/blastocyst/whatever you want to call it).
For one reason, minors are not allowed to enter into contracts. Hence the contract is illegal and unenforceable.
For another, you cannot contract to use other people’s body parts, including uteruses. Hence the contract is illegal and unenforceable.
If the woman was using birth control and got pregnant, she definitely was not planning to give consent to pregnancy. Hence the contract is illegal and unenforceable.
There is no consideration for the woman, so no contract can be implied. Unless you want to take the step, which I don’t think would work legally even in this outlandish hypothetical, that the pleasure from sex was the necessary consideration.
Well, it might be considered sufficient if the sex was with Brad Pitt, for example. The sex with me, on the other hand, ain’t going to cut it in the contractual stakes.
There is also no meeting of the minds, because, even if we view the fetus as a full legal entity, it didn’t exist when the alleged implied contract was made.
Parents are legally obligated to care for their children. The parents are not absolved of this responsibility because the child cannot legally contract with the adults for their care.
If you needed a kidney is it illegal for you to enter into a contract with me to have me give you one of mine? (I honestly do not know but do not see why not)
Not planning to get pregnant does not absolve the woman of anything. Lots of things we do we assume a risk and are responsible for it. When I go skiing I do not plan to break my leg but if it happens I won’t sue the ski resort. The woman assumes the risk of possible outcomes from having sex (STD, pregnancy, etc.).
Not strictly true. A minor can enter into a contract, I believe, and can enforce that contract, but a contract may (in many circumstances) not be enforced against a minor.
Not always. Isn’t surrogacy legal in some states? Even if not, I can contract with someone to provide me with a pint of blood once a month. The contract will be void as against public policy I would imagine if I attempted to sue if they did not deliver but had doctor’s advice they were not well enough to give the blood, but that isn’t the concept of the contract being banned.
The argument would be that she was consenting to the risk of pregnancy. There are (see previous post) some more fundamental problems with the contractual approach, though.
NO, but that’s actually a good question. It all depends on what you mean by “understand it’s own worth.” If you’re talking about somebody in a persistent vegetative state for example, the argument that “Humanity” has ended even though “Life” persists has merit. Likewise, a fetus has “Life” but no comprehension or concept of value. It doesn’t even have a framework for assigning value. A fetus is a proto-human, but not a fully developed, cognizant human. As such, it doesn’t have the rights of a fully developed, cognizant human, any more than an unfertilized egg or a sperm does. It may be -emphasis on May- that over the course of it’s development, closer to full term it begins to acquire those rights, in which case there should be a point at which it is considered fully human, if not cognizant, and therefore abortion is no longer an option (except in emergency cases) but when that point is, I’m not sure. I believe there are neurological markers that indicate a level of mental activity that could be the basis for deciding when a fetus passes from Proto to human, but I don’t know what they are.
I’m not sure if a legal argument on contracts is in any way appropriate to this discussion since, as noted, it gets pretty goofy pretty quickly.
That said if you choose to have a child I think there is an implied contract from you towards the child for its care. Certainly you will go to jail if you neglect the child or abuse it. I see no consideration from the child to you to make a “proper” contract nor do I see where there was ever a meeting of the minds. Yet you bear the responsibility just the same.
Sorry - I have been plotting an article for a while concerned with a contractual view of sex/pregnancy, with the main thrust being that it is inconsistent for a libertarian to oppose abortion, regardless of their view as to the “life” status of the fetus.
The thing is, with the responsibility to the child, that is not enforced in a contractual sense - it is enforced through criminal sanctions. I don’t think the language of contracts helps there.
You are kind of making my point for me. My point being that all of the rest of this is a matter of philosophy…What is a “human being?” Is an embryo one, or not? If so, why? If not, why not? Is there a soul? If so, when does it “arrive?” Even if the embryo is a human, do we have a right to abort it, anyway? Why or why not? These are questions that are worth discussing, and don’t necessarily have a “right or wrong” answer. Your opinion/viewpoint may be different from mine. But to say that a fetus is no more human than a spleen is like a garden hose is something that I think not even most pro-choicers would agree with.
That is true. Personally, my religion doesn’t have much to do with my pro-life stance. I am far, far, far more convinced that abortion is morally wrong than I am that my religion’s theology is right, or even that there is a god at all.
That’s an interesting question, because small babies can’t really do either of those things.