There is a so-called “Top Free Society” that advocates the right of women to be topless in public places. They sometimes hold protests in which they disrobe in public parks, and no one is arrested.
They argue that they have the same right as men to go topless in public. (I’m not talking about nursing mothers.)
My feeling is they can’t have it both ways. If the breasts are not sexual, then no one could be accused of sexual harassment for commenting on them or sexual assault for touching them.
It seems to me that the premise of this topic, while obviously debatable, is flawed simply because of the nature of how society must handle itself. Society (and the laws that govern it) as a whole is comprised of both men and women, and just because the two sexes are markedly different, and sometimes possess mutually exclusive roles and responsibilities, doesn’t mean that one segment should be automatically granted exclusivity when dealing with itself in a given manner for a given subject that generally affects us all.
From a societal standpoint, we must ALL take responsibility for ALL of our actions.
Pizzabrat is making the ultimate “her body, her choice” argument. The problem is that once a person does something with “her body” it has an impact on other people.
pizzabrat, what’s your stance on laws that only affect minors? For example, no one under 21 can buy alcohol, and no one under 18 can buy cigarettes or vote. In many areas, minors can’t be outside during certain hours (curfew laws), and they may receive restricted driver’s licenses that prohibit them from driving in certain situations.
I can say with absolute confidence that no minor voted to restrict any of those rights, since minors can’t vote. Surely, for the reasons given in your OP, you must believe that those laws are invalid?
Only men can father children. Because only men can be fathers, doesn’t that provide a legal basis for fathers rights that women cannot have? Would you support any law based on the fact that only men can be fathers?
No, that’s not what I said. What I said is that there are fundamental, inalienable and self-evident rights which the government recognizes, such as the right to life. This does not mean that every single right belongs in that category.
Remember, I was refuting BURNER’s claim that the only rights we have are those which are granted by the government. I did not claim that the government can not selectively grant other “rights” in addition to the fundamentals.
The OP is arguing from a false premise. Legislators needn’t sacrifice a thing in installing law, despite pizzabrat’s feeling that this somehow isn’t fair. Saying it over and over again won’t make it the basis for U.S. law.
Laws are installed because of the legislators’ hopes that the laws will protect and allow society to run more efficaciously, so long as the laws installed do not violate the Constitution. Laws are or aren’t effective purely on their own merit, not on the merit of those who voted them in place.
Can infertile adults vote for laws against child abuse? Why? They are no longer children. Can’t even produce any. Can Northern whites vote against southern slavery? Why? Where’s their dog in this fight? Not only aren’t they southern farmers, they aren’t even black! Let the people with a stake in the game decide things! A moment’s thought would show why this is a silly premise.
But the argument collapses immediately of its own weight when one considers that most attempts to restrict abortions are based on a belief that the unborn are humans with rights. The unborn are represented by both genders. You want men to have a stake in the game? There you go. Pro-lifers have provided you with your “consistency.” Even if you ignore the logical fallacy of the OP, you have your answer, on the OP’s own terms. Men guard against evil against their male progeny, in the same way they would for male children, I guess. If you really need to answer this point.
Some questions for you ** pizzabrat **. I am trying to come at this from your point of view. Using your OP:
Should women who never were pregnant get to vote on such laws? Should women incapable of pregnancy (and never had been pregnant) be allowed to vote (including post menopausal women)? Why are women more effected by abortion then the fetuses? Why should all former fetus be banned from such votes?
And one more, What does the right to abortion actually mean to you?
To get what I’m looking for, the right to abortion to me is the right to the killing of our species most innocent for the convienence of others.
Im sure I could refine it a bit, but would like to know what abortion is to you.
Yes they do. What law can a legislator pass that wouldn’t deny him a (possibly potential, or theoretical) right?
Why not? Theortically, they’d be able to have children (by adoption), and they would be sacrificing thier right to abuse children. Perfectly fair.
Of course. Nothing was stopping Northerners from moving south and owning slaves themselves, so voting against it would be sacrifcing thier own opportunity to have slaves. And slaves couldn’t vote, so they didn’t count. Perfectly fair.
It’s not about people who only currently have a “stake in the game”, it’s about people who can never, ever have a stake in the game in any hypothetical situation.
My argument ignores that consideration because fetii can’t vote, and men could never abort them in the first place, so they can’t vote on their behalf.
Mr2001:
No, my OP goes along perfectly with those. Minors could never vote in the first place, so their fate as always been at the hands of the adult populace, who have once been minors themselves.
k2kave:
Yes, because it was possible for them to be pregnant.
Ideally, I guess not, but the amount of women that are barren are so negligible that there’d be no point in barring them.
To me, the right of abortion is something that should be left up to women. I’m not a womon, so I can’t offer more than that.
He can pass a law lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, or raising it from 18-21.
Can women who have always been infertile vote on the possible illegalisation of abortion?
You miss the point. Whether or not fetuses can vote is as irrelevant as an irrelevancy is possible to be. Your contention is that men shouldn’t have the right to have a say in whether or not abortion is legitimised because they have no vested interests in the matter. Bob Cos has demonstrated that they do. The males which are aborted.
Gomez already provided a perfectly good example. You continue to labor under the impression that it is a necessity that the legislator give something up. A legislator may or may not sacrifice something in installing a law, but it is irrelevant. You can keep repeating that this is so in the case of abortion, and it still won’t matter.
A law is just, or it is not. A law is constitutional, or it is not. Neither is a function of who crafted the law. Why is that so difficult to understand?
Our legislative process does not operate in the way you seem to think it does. Continuing to point out that a particular subset of law dows not meet a criterion that does not even exist in our legal system isn’t particularly constructive.
If you think it ought to exist, explain why men cannot craft a just abortion law, why that is out of necessity impossible. As JThunder already pointed out, it was male Justices who rendered the Roe v. Wade opinion. Do you reject that out of hand? Explain why men, elected by women as well, cannot execute the duties they were elected to carry out, when a majority of those who elected them may have been women in the first place.
" Feutuses could never vote in the first place, so their fate as always been at the hands of the adult populace, who have once been fetuses themselves."
pizzabrat I’m going on the assumption that there will be no legal issues with your proposal (Constitutional Issues).
If you include post menopausal women who never were pregnant I would say you have a considerable number.
I asked this to help understand your OP in context. Your answer sidesteps the question. Am I to take it as you think you should have no thoughts on it because you are not a woman?
Also another question you ignore I think it very important
and ties to the one above; you make the claim that:
But the fetus’ sacrifice far outweighs the womans’.
Another question if you don’t mind. Women sometimes get post partum depression after childbirth which sometimes (not often)causes them to want to strangle their baby, unfortunatly sometimes this happens. Would you object to the current ‘law making system’ to establish laws dealing with this or should this too be a women’s only issue? And how does it differ from the OP issue?
You’re misunderstanding me. You’re making a philosophical argument - that those who have no vested interest in certain legislation, or aren’t affected by it, shouldn’t be allowed to create it. And, I responded, on a philosophical level, that as our representatives are supposed to be the representations of our collective will, rather than individuals making decisions, then what does their physical sex actually matter?
They’re not just representing themselves, their male selves - they’re representing an entire group of people, which includes women.
In any case, on a more practical level, you’d have to apply this “affected by” standard to all legislation, and nothing would get passed. (You can’t pass a farm bill, because 99-100% of congressmen have no experience farming, etc.)
There’s the rub. Adults have no ability to suddenly become adolescents, and they cannot theoretically do so in the future. Your answer is that adults were once minors themselves.
Replace “minors” with “fetuses” in your above quote, and you can see where we are getting at.
Are they? Every fetus is the product of a sperm and an egg, each containing 23 chromosomes. Does the fact that the embryo actually grows inside the woman’s body mean that the man has no stake in it?
