I disagree, on a number of fronts. All due respect, I find the notion of equating pregnancy with “enslavement” to be ridiculous. The fetus has not made a deliberate act. In the vast majority of cases, the only deliberate act that led to the fetus’s existence was made by the mother and father. I’m not saying that sex is sinful and any resulting pregnancy is punishment, or any of that banana oil. I’m saying it’s hyperbole to describe a pregnancy as an act of enslavement. It is certainly an unavoidable restriction (or it should be) on bodily liberty. It ain’t enslavement.
“Whatever means necessary”? Including the use of lethal force? I’m going to ask you to prove that assertion. Where does the law say that kidnapping victims are given complete freedom to kill their abductors, without any fear of reprise or prosecution?
Besides which, the unborn is not the kidnapper. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out to you, the unborn has no volition whatsoever – no choice in the matter. If anything, the unborn is more like a captive than a kidnapper. It was created by the mother and is being held captive with no regard for its particular desires.
As Stratocaster said, this does not mean that the sexual act was necessarily sinful. However, likening the unborn to a “kidnapper” is just plain ridiculous. It’s an attempt to characterize the pregnancy in the worst possible terms, painting the unborn as some evil tyrant set upon enslaving the woman. I think that even most ardent pro-choicers would object to that characterization.
BTW, you still haven’t addressed my earlier questions. Where does the law say that someone can be declared guilty for an act, even when that person has no means of acting otherwise? If a paralytic is pushed off a roof and lands on someone’s car, is that paralytic responsible for the damages incurred? After all, the paralytic has just as much choice in the matter as the unborn does.
[QUOTE=rwjefferson]
That is not true. I have been pregnant 3 times and not for one millisecond of any of these pregnancies have I been anywhere near death.
Yes. You provide no proof, expansion, or foundation for this sort of statement:
and yet it’s the base of your whole argument. Why is *this *right axiomatic, and not rwjefferson’s right to liberty? You acert that life takes precidence over liberty, but do not give a reason.
I did notice that you say no right is truly inviolable - how do you then make a case for this one being more invioble than liberty? I’m not saying it’s a case of “all rights are inviolable or none are”, but why do you rank them the way you do?
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
But the risk was always there…
And I do know how to spell “assert” :smack:
and even precedence :smack:
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Well, I don’t know if it was there. I imagine I was probably more at risk driving on the highway to work every day. SOME pregnancies carry a risk for death, yes. The percentage is very, very, small. And I would certainly support an abortion if this were the case.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
That was just the most sloppily constructed sentence EVER. I should have said this: If a woman has a serious risk of death due to a pregnancy, then I would certainly support abortion as an option in that case.
(Not too much better, but I think this time I am at least getting my meaning across…)
From the US Declartaion of Independence (this is not meant to be a pro-USA-all-should-think-like-us post…I am just using it as an illustration of my beliefs regarding basic human rights)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
I believe whole heartedly in this premise. However, I don’t believe that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are perfectly equal…I believe the order in which they were placed was purposeful. You cannot have liberty without life, you cannot have the pursuit of happiness without liberty. One flows from the next from the next. It is a ranking of necessity. What is liberty without life? What is the pursuit of happiness without liberty? Nonexistent.
A sticky source, to be sure. The legal definition (and the DoI is a legal document) of “unalienable” is “The state of a thing or right which cannot be sold.” cite It’s a term relating to commerce. You cannot sell me your right to life or liberty or pursuit of happiness (whatever that means) - yet at the time the document was written, you could have sold me another (black) man’s right to all three in the form of slavery. Not so unalienable for him, huh?
I posit that a document with such obvious errors in logic cannot be assumed to have thought out the order of rights in a logical manner.
Better to say that there is an order derived from logic, or religion or some ethical principles, rather than a flawed document written by flawed men.
Certainly one can pursue some happiness while not enjoying liberty. Anne Frank has some wonderful stories of happy times in the annex before being killed. Negro spirituals show great joy and faith in life and God. Are these people free to pursue all happinesses they want in any form they want? Well, no. But neither am I. I’m not allowed to pursue the happiness of heroin, for one. Or the joy that comes with racing down the highway at 100 mph. I’m not condoning slavery or the Holocaust, just pointing out that happiness is possible under very dire circumstances involving very little liberty.
I can’t, however, think of an instance in which liberty is possible without the right to live, you’re right. Once the right to live is violated, you’re dead, and the dead have no rights. So I’m willing to cede that the right to live is a requirement for any other rights to exist. But that still doesn’t mean that the fetus *has *that right to life. Can you explain why a previable fetus has that right? (Knowing that legally, it doesn’t, in any state.)
I think, with the pregnancy risk, the notion is that all pregnancies, collectively, carry some risk, and it’s really hard to tell how risk-free you’re going to be (absent a full genetic scan and medical), until already there. There are lots of things that cut down the amount of risk (simple blood-typing, having kids young enough but not too young, eating right etc.), but there’s always some risk. Not neccessarily lif-threatening, but the risk is non-zero for any pregnancy.
I don’t. Not the self-evident bit, and certainly not the creator endowment bit. Nor are all men equal, other than before the law. I believe rights arise from societies, and societies can stack and rank them anyway they choose, and make exceptions to any right as and when they choose. You must agree, because you’re arguing for a denial of liberty in favour of life. Now, that document doesn’t say
“most importantly, life, then liberty if appropriate, and then happiness if it doesn’t
conflict”, or even “…and the greatest of these three is Life”.
It doesn’t make the distinction you’re arguing it does. I could just as easily argue (in fact, that would be my explanation) that it’s written that way because it scans better. The Declaration is political rethoric, not philosophical argument. It takes too many things for granted, in that “We’re all Enlightened fellows here, nudge, wink, Masonic handshake” kind of way.
There have been historical situations where someone may be enjoying a (possibly limeted) right to liberty, while not enjoying an absolute right to life - ancient Rome, medieval Japan, etc. Any society where, while relatively free to act as an independent person, to pursue your own goals and wants, you could still be ordered to kill yourself on a whim.
It could be argued that there was a restriction on absolute liberty there, in that the society is essentially hierarchical, but I’d argue that the relative freedom to act meant that the right to liberty was existent.
Right you are. Thanks.
Sure, it was. When arranging a nice turn of phrase, it sounds better to put the short clause first, a longer one second and the longest one last. Another classic example is Superman fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.”
Similarly, 1 Corinthians 13:13 (KJV) cites “faith, hope, and charity” (faith and hope being tied at one syllable each) and then goes on to stress that charity is the greatest.
In any case, life is clearly not the most important, in light of other writings and statements of the founding fathers. Patrick Henry’s famous Give me Liberty or Give me Death essay of 1775 shows that he isn’t willing to put life above all else. Thomas Jefferson’s “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” also acknowledges that keeping freedom sometimes requires giving up life.
If you’re going to use the Declaration of Independence as a basis, it behooves you to place it in its historical context, rather than just cherry-pick one excerpt and apply your own interpretation.
And you know, I just thought of an example from our own culture: soldiers. A reservist knows that he may be called upon to give his life at any time for his country. He does not have an absolute right to his life. Most of the time though, he enjoys the same liberties and right to pursue happiness that anyone else does. In times of draft, this limitation on the right to life extends to all people enrolled in the Selective Service.
So I take back my ceding (is that a word?) I do think we’ve come up with examples of the right to life being abridged without infringing on the rights of liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
As I said, the quote was meant to be illustrative, not dogma (as in, “you must also believe that there is a Creator”). However, I do not believe that these rights are given by society. I believe that they are inherent rights that society has the power to take away, but that this is an abuse of society’s power.
My basic argument is this: Although I consider liberty to be one of these inalienable rights, as I say, you cannot have it without first having the right to live. This is illustrated all around us every day. For instance, although the US is supposed to be a liberal democracy (using “liberal” in the original sense, that people tend to call “libertarian” now). However, it functions on many levels more as a socialist state. For instance, as a taxpaying citizen, a certain percentage of the income I earn from working goes to social programs. These social programs help keep other people alive. THEIR right to live trumps MY right to liberty. I do not begrudge this limit to my liberty, because I believe that the right to life is paramount.
Except…the reservist signed up for the reserves…he or she gave up full autonomy. This is his or her right to do with his or her own life.
And I have big problems with the concept of the military draft, for just this reason.
I “cherry-picked” it because I happen to believe in that particular idea, and quoting it expressed my opinion better than I could have done it.
OK, I get that. (And I agree, actually.) But do you agree that it’s *possible *to abridge the right to life and not the right of liberty? You may not agree that it’s right and just and good, but surely you now see that it’s possible, right?
Because that was what I was arguing against. Your statement, repeated several times in this thread, that “You cannot have liberty without life, you cannot have the pursuit of happiness without liberty. One flows from the next from the next. It is a ranking of necessity. What is liberty without life? What is the pursuit of happiness without liberty? Nonexistent.” Not whether it’s good or bad, but whether it’s *possible *to have liberty without [the right to] life.
See, I still don’t get this from the military reservist example, because the reservist gives up the right to liberty. This is an expression of liberty in the first place, because they choose to give it up. There are lots of examples of this. Firemen give up the liberty they have to sleep through the night every night, by virtue of their profession. But they have the liberty to choose that profession, and in doing so give up some of their personal autonomy. My basic point holds…that this expression of liberty is impossible without the right to life.