"New" Abortion Initiative

Zombrex

patzer117 wrote:

The difference is between the active killing and the passive allowing someone to die.

But it is an act of defense, to maintain body integrity. The baby has already broken the womans body integrity. Actively stopping someone who needs your kidney to survive but is trying to remove it themselves, is that the same as murder if they die as a result of kidney failure?

Maybe my examples are bad, because it is hard to come up with examples where the other person is all ready totally dependent on your body. Organ transplants normally involve a simple removale and then the person is finished.

Try and imagine being hooked up to a machine where if you removed the tubes going into you, someone on a table beside you would die. Do you have the right to remove the tubes?

The foetus dies as a result of the procedure, no one is denying that. But does the woman not have the right to do the procedure on her own body, even if it results in the loss of a life?

RampagingBadger

Wicknight wrote:

Why exactly?

I mean, my right to life doesn't over ride your right to bodily integrity, does it? I mean we don't force people to give blood, even though car crash victims need it to live? Whats the difference between that an a foetus?

Hoi it's not women don't have to do something to get pregnant. If pregnancy was a virus that you caught that'd be fair enough. But it's not. It's an unavoidable risk of having sex. The foetas (through no fault of its own) has been foisted into a position of dependance by the couple in question. As such I do think the right to life would overide the "bodily integrity". Except of course in cases of rape.

patzer117

Wicknight wrote:

The foetus dies as a result of the procedure, no one is denying that. But does the woman not have the right to do the procedure on her own body, even if it results in the loss of a life?

No she doesn't (again if you believe the foetus is human). Simple as that, because while her rights are absolute over her own body, that absolute stretches only as far as until that right infringes on somebody elses right - in this case the foetus. The state is therefore able to, and (if the foetus is a human) should, legislate against it. Put simply she doesn't have the right to complete bodily integrity because that right affects somebody else.

The Corinthian

Wicknight wrote:

But does the woman not have the right to do the procedure on her own body, even if it results in the loss of a life?

If one accepts a utilitarian moral code, of course she does.

athena 2000

Victor wrote:

Hang on the foetus isn't "introduced into the equation", the mother (usually) has to do something first for the foetus to get there. This isn't situation where some malevolent dictator is oppressing the people.

The term 'bodily integrity' is misleading. The human female body is acting in total integrity with its reproductive capabilities when impregnated and a new life begins development. The developing human foetus (what else could it be, a cat?) is made up in part by the DNA/chromosomes of its own mother and that process will continue (within a general best case example) until the time for birth occurs. There is no true technical loss of bodily integrity to the human female that does concieve in my estimation.

Zombrex

RampagingBadger wrote:

As such I do think the right to life would overide the "bodily integrity". Except of course in cases of rape.

Its unfair on the foetus to be terminated because it didn't do anything consciously, except in instances of rape? How does that work? Did the foetus rape the woman?

Dades

For anyone interested, Carl Sagan does a very good analysis of the abortion issue in his last book, Billions and Billions. He focuses on both sides of the equation, together with (US) case law on the matter.

Very interesting stuff, and hard to get an objective view thse days.

RampagingBadger

Wicknight wrote:

Its unfair on the foetus to be terminated because it didn't do anything consciously, except in instances of rape? How does that work? Did the foetus rape the woman?

No, the point being that the women willfully compelled the foetus into a position of dependance and as such I think she should have to ensure that said foetas/human safely passes out of that period of dependance. In cases of rape that arguament doesn't hold and as such I think you could argue for abortion in these circumstances.

Nevyn

In the cases were contraception has failed this is not the case at all.
Biology makes it so but that is not reason enough.
if you are taking that route well then you may as well say sure cancer is natural as well,