Yahzi said:
I might as well argue that it's your fault the trespasser is your house. You built a house knowing full well that trespassers might come into it. Now that one has, how do you expect the police to violate his rights just because you screwed up?
How many times are you going to use this particular flawed argument? The trespasser is at moral fault for invading your home (or hole, or whatever other example you want to put fences around). It was the choice of the trespasser to enter, despite the fences and warnings and laws. It is not the choice of the fetus to exist. It exists because of the choices of the parents. The moral choices of the trespasser make your example completely inapplicable.
You have taken the position that pregnancy is a morally inescapable result of sex. But you have not shown why this would be the case.
Why would it not be the case? People know that sex causes pregnancy. In fact, it is the only thing that causes pregnancy. If pregnancy results from sex, there are certain consequences. If you know that despite your efforts to the contrary, pregnancy may still result, you are morally responsible for it. You don't get a moral free pass just because you wore a condom. Or should Ford get a moral free pass for the Pinto, because only a few would blow up?
I understand that. The point of contention is that you think the human status of a fetus matters. It does not. Abortion is merely the extension of the right to privacy that you take for granted. Giving a fetus a special right to cease someone else's most private property, soley because of need, is unacceptable. Nor is somehow pretending that the couple who used birth control nonetheless voluntarily agreed to pregnancy.
Of course the human status matters. If this is your postition, then fathers should be able to get out of child support if they wore a condom. Mothers should be able to leave babies to die in the street. If you don't think this, then tell me why. Tell me how a human life (the same life) is worth more after birth than before.
On what basis do you make this decision? And why doesn't it extend beyond fetushood? Why does the child's right to use your internal organs cease when it is born - supposing that it continued to require them for another 9 months?
You can keep saying this, but the fact is that the situation doesn't occur. The baby does not need my organs to survive after birth. And nothing I did made it so the baby needs my organs.
You have arbitrarily decided to take someone else's property and give it to someone who needs it. This is beyond socialism; it's downright communistic. The fact that you only endorse this principal when it applies to women renders your motivations deeply suspect.
I haven't arbitrarily done anything. The parents have engaged in behaviour, and the pregnancy is the result. They cannot escape the responsibility for that pregnancy.
Also, I find your accusations regarding my motivations to be offensive. Firstly, you assume too much. I have not taken any position about whether the fetus IS in fact, a human life. I am merely arguing that the human life status of the fetus is the central question in the abortion debate. Second, you don't me or my views on gender politics. I fully support gender equality, and I have put my money where my mouth is in that support.
That's the point! It has the same rights. It does not have special rights. You do not have any right to my internal organs, no matter how desperately you need them. The fetus has exactly the same rights.
The only right I am advocating is the right to life. Yes, that life necessarily depends on the support of the mother. That is why her rights must be considered as well. It is a difficult balancing act that must be done. But if I had to balance the right to life of the baby to the risks associated with a normal pregnancy to the mother, I find in favour of the right to life as being the most basic of all rights. Yes, the right to privacy is surrendered to the right to life.
Please, remember Yahzi that I am arguing under the assumption that the fetus is a human with the same rights as everyone else. I am arguing that the status matters.
