Subject:
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Re: Abortion, consistent with the LP stance? (Re: From Harry Browne
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 11 Nov 2000 15:13:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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886 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> > > The whole problem of the abortion debate is that it is actually *two*
> > > debates intertwined into one. One, whether the government has the right
> > > to tell one what one can do with one's body (most would say no),
> >
> > This issue aside, I can't agree with this. Goverment should also protect us
> > from ourselves. If one were to decide to take ones own life, one would
> > expect "government" to get involved.
>
> Not this one. Suicide should be a right.
I'd agree... Assuming of course that the person is of sound mind, and that
the rights of others are not being violated in doing so.
Clear cut example, I don't have the right to fill up a truck with explosives
and then drive to your house and set it off outside the front door, inasmuch
as I'm liable to violate your rights not to have fiery pieces of truck
descend on your house in the subsequent blast.
Not as clear cut example... (for which I'm not totally sure of the answer
to, because I haven't bothered to carry out a detailed, critical, full
featured rights analysis, not because it's unsolvable)
Suppose I'm incarcerated for a crime which I've been convicted of, and I am
engaged (under court order) in useful labor in order to compensate the
victims. Can I commit suicide to escape that debt? I'd tend to say no. Can I
take up slovenly eating habits and thereby shorten my lifespan? I dunno.
The general principle is that one has the right to do as one wishes,
including engaging in acts that are deleterious to one's well being, as long
as in so doing one does not violate the rights of others. Easy to
articulate, not always trivial (but always possible!!) to apply.
To say differently is to acknowledge that the state has rights to dispose of
your property against your wishes without compensation. Some think (those
that support state redistribution of wealth) that's OK, and outlawing
suicide (it, after all, deprives the state of taxpayers) is consistent with
that moral premise, the premise that "right" flows from the barrel of a gun,
and the stronger have the right to impose their will on the weaker.
That's a stark statement, but that's what it boils down to.
++Lar
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