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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Sun, 12 Nov 2000 15:24:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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910 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John DiRienzo writes:
> Unfortunately the idea is still ultra radical.
I have had people in face to face discussions, refuse to ever talk to me again
because I supported ideas like this. (Or that sexual encounters between adults
and children are not necessarily unhealthy, or that cannibalism isn't evil.)
But the more we talk about such things, the more others will think about them.
> Thinking back to my post yesterday, regarding my thoughts I wrote down in
> a reply to Maggie, neither parent (progenitor, creator) has a claim on their
> children - meaning the children are not property of the creators. It (the
> human being, at any age or stage of development) is its own property, as are
> all human beings.
This is my stance, except that I'm unsure about when one becomes human, since I
don't think the biology is what rights hinge on. I am careful to let my son
know that we don't own him and that he is not our slave. We practice a
parental philosophy of no forceful coersion.
> The implications of this radical idea you are
> reintroducing are pretty massive and point to a severe lack of understanding
> in our collective view of the topic of abortion, the role of men and women
> in this world and their relations to each other...
And while off-topic to this thread, I think a bigger revolution based in this
same idea is the relationship between parents and their children and all the
subsequent stewardship issues that arise from that.
> This is very hard to explain, but its interesting to think about.
Yes.
> Hopefully someone here will understand what I am saying and make it legible.
I think you have made it mostly legible.
> A human being at any stage of its development is still a human being. It
> is a human, always, until death. This supposes that you accept that human
> life begins at conception. One doesn't begin as one thing and turn into
> something else - it is constantly human.
I still assert that biologically, human life never begins. But individuality
does. And it's not at coneption, at least not in a meaningful sense.
I want some clarification about who gets rights in our several opinions, if
you're willing to play along.
Do prisoners of the state have rights? All of them?
Do humans with no brain have rights? All, none, or any of them?
Do any non-human animals?
When an AI exists, what rights will it have? How sophisticated must it be to
have some/any? Why?
What rights does a human who has deanimated for cryonic suspension and future
revival retain?
> What are rights? Nothing. Rights are nothing without a tool to enforce
> the decided upon rights. That tool is government.
Or private courts that one contracts with.
> In the USA, one of
> our inalienable rights is the right to life. It doesn't say all human
> beings have this right... it is vague, and says "all men." So, does this
> mean women don't have the same right? I guess so. So there is one minor
> flaw. I think most people today accept that women are included when
> speaking about the "rights of all men." In my mind the correct term is
> human beings, not men, unless we grant that in this context those terms are
> exactly synonymous.
The word "men" has two ways in which it distinguishes some from everyone. One
of these is based on sex, which you discussed and the other is based on age. A
man is a male human who has reached some societally accepted age of consent.
So you suggest that we should use "human beings" instead. Do you mean to add
kids too? I'm thinking you do, since you're arguing for the rights of fetuses.
> I believe a human being begins its life at conception, and remains human
> until it dies.
Is a human really human if it's nothing like those of us who we all agree are
humans (except for genetic code)? I have no problem saying that a head being
kept animated by a life-support box is human and as such shares the same rights
with the rest of us, but what about the opposite, a human body with no brain?
What about a human body with a brain that EEGs very differently than ours does
and doesn't drive the human body to seek survival?
> I believe a human being has a right to life, and it is the
> governments duty/role/purpose to enforce and protect that right. I would
> feel corrupt belonging to and supporting a government that does not support
> the rights of all human beings. I don't feel too happy about the current
> government, BTW.
I'm being repetitive, but I feel corrupt by financially supporting our
government.
> So, I have stated that it is not the woman's choice to kill another human
> being. I have stated that neither the man or the woman has a claim to their
> creation, that the creation owns itself.
You've also stated that it is the woman's responsibility to provide the care
for the little human that she created when the little human can not. What
rights to determine what care the little human needs does the woman have? What
claim does the little human have to the woman's resources?
> This is where most people will call me crazy:
> The man has no interest (legal claim, no property rights) to the woman or
> the new human being he has helped create.
> He has no claim and also has no responsibility. Thats radical.
Unless he contracts for such claim and responsibility, right? It's radical,
but I'll not call you crazy. But I insist on such a contract. I want _me_ to
have both the responsibility and the claim.
> Like a woman says, it is her body. It is her decision and her action
> that causes things to happen inside her.
The TOS associated with my code (genes) gives me a claim.
> For years women have been pardoned
> the repsonsibility of upbringing a life she brought into the world - that
> responsibilty has been wrongfully handed to the man. There are many laws
> that support the usual belief that a man is responsible for a child he helps
> create. But let me remind you that existence of a law doesn't make a truth
> untrue or a lie truth. We have witnessed many laws that were wrong before,
> this is just another example.
But I need the 'why' of it too. Why is it only the woman's responsibility?
Just because there is a law doesn't mean it's not right. And just because you
say so, doesn't mean that it's truth.
If I allow a woman to use my code, why doesn't that action engender some
responsibility for the product?
If I develop a clear an explicit step by step plan for how to blow up the World
Trade Center, and I give the plans to some other folks and convince them that
they could get away with it because I know all the holes in security and law
enforcement, and then they follow the plan and blow up the WTC. Do I bear no
responsibility for that because I didn't actually do it? When I supplied the
code for how to build my son, I accepted some responsibility for the outcome of
that project. I think that's the right stance.
> So you think I am crazy. I don't care. In an insane world, only the
> insane are sane. Let me give you more proof.
> Neither the woman or the man knows that sex will necessarily result in
> the conception of a new human being. Most times, it doesn't have that
> result.
> There has been an unwritten contract between man and woman since
> civilization began stating that if a man knocks a woman up he'll have to
> support her. This makes sense 5,000 years, or 500 years ago, or 50 years
> ago, when it was nearly certain doom for both the woman and the offspring if
> the man renegged.
Why did it make sense for the man at that time? What about cases today where
it is essentially unchanged? Doom (with a capital D) is unlikely without the
father's help, but that was so 50 years ago too.
> However, this is modern times now. We have stopped acting like animals
> in most respects, but in this respect we have not.
As animals, we will always act like animals. It's not even a bad thing. It
just is.
> A woman has the means to prevent pregnancy.
As does the man.
> A woman has the means to make a written contract, which
> is much more easily enforced anyway.
Agreed. A written contract would be preferable in all ways.
> Most importantly, in today's modern
> world, a man is inessential to the upbringing of a child.
Inessential how? Do you mean that a child need not be raised by an active
father in order to survive, or do you mean in order to achieve maximum health?
If you mean to ensure survival, then I agree, but that's true of the mother
too. Anyone can pop soy formula into a bottle and keep a baby alive. If you
mean that fathers contribute nothing to the social wellfare of their kids,
that's just not so.
I am surrounded by annecdotal evidence that suggests that active loving fathers
are every bit as important as mothers. And I am pretty sure that I've read
studies that demonstrated that scientifically, as well.
> I believe instead
> of using government as an abstract enforcer of abstract outdated and
> unwritten contracts, the government would be more useful to the people if it
> did not legislate on sexuality, marriiage, the choices and decisions of men
> or women.
Me too.
> To clarify this. A woman needs not become pregnant from having sex. She
> is the ultimate decision maker when she gets pregnant. The man may decide
> yes, but if the woman decides no, then there is no conception
She can not get pregnant without a donation of sperm. Whoever decides to
supply the sperm is also the ultimate decision maker. If the man decides no,
and the woman decides yes, then there is no conception.
> The ultimate decision is always hers, and thus the responsibility is hers.
I don't see it that way.
> I believe the enduring idea that a man is responsible for "his woman" is
> quite archaic. That term denotes ownership, which is another fallacy found
> in male-female relations.
Agreed. I, on the other hand, am responsible _to_ my woman, just as she is to
me. There is no ownership, merely a mutually acceptable degree of
accountability to one another.
> In today's modern world, and tomorrow's near
> utopia, women finally can and should be responsible for themselves.
That situation should be enabled. They should never have to rely on a man for
protection and provision. That doesn't mean that they will find a relationship
similar to the traditional one unsatisfactory.
> I think
> they'll prefer seeing themselves as sole-proprietors of themselves, when
> they learn how. Men need to do the same thing.
But still able to form close associative unions (and not just couples).
> this is such a ridiculous question, in our high tech modern world with such
> amazing uses of medicine.
As I pointed out in my past note, it happens.
> It would be very hard to legislate against the morning after pill in
> libertopia, and perhaps abortion, also, since a person might have
> considerably more privacy concerning her health.
Do you see that as a good or bad thing? It seems good to me, but if I were
clearly against abortion, I'm sure I'd feel that way.
> I am convinced however, that people would not be allowing
> themselves to become pregnant in an enlightened libertopia.
You mean unwantedly, right? I agree. More people will make more choices about
their lives with more information and intelligence. I think that this is the
case because they will have more incentive to adopt a life of care and
responsibility, and they will have more pervasive access to information.
> The cause isn't very good if no one but thieves will support
> it, IMHO.
Yup. Except that the looters disagree, and point to us as the reason that they
have to tax people.
> > Now, if some charity want's to pay for the care of the baby, we need to
> > re-examine the rights question. I'm not convinced in such a situation
> > that the charity should be able to force the mother to proceed with the
> > pregnancy.
>
> No, the charity doesn't own the mother.
Neither does the government, but you're opposed to the government allowing
the woman an abortion. Or are you?
> > This of course brings up the related debate: When is it appropriate to
> > exert control on the behavior of the mother, and to what extent?
>
> But to answer that, I'd say when she is violating the rights of another.
Should she be prevented from violating those rights or penalized once she
chooses to?
Chris
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