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You take it wrong. I won't eat the flesh of persons.

As I said only persons have rights. That means non-persons have none.

Ba'al,

Would you then eat the flesh of an unborn fetus, so long as it fancies your taste? Seeing as you are taking the position that a fetus is not a persons, I see no reason why you would object to it.

Brad

As I said, if I eat mammal flesh it comes from a mammal that cheweth the cud and parteth the hoof. Primate flesh fails on both scores.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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A miscarriage is not the intention of the mother. It is an accident (right?). J...

If you accidentally cause the death of another person, you are culpable. That we do not prosecute women for miscarriages may be only the result of non-objective law. That is what we are discussing here. What is objective law regarding this?

Before abortion became legal, a woman who induced (or attempted to induce) a miscarriage was culpable.

What if a woman has failed to engage adequate prenatal care? Is that not negligent homicide? What if she thought she was doing the right thing, but was not, in fact, doing such? Is that not negligent homicide?

"The crime of negligent homicide is included within every crime of manslaughter charged to have been committed in the operation of any vessel, and where a defendant is charged with manslaughter committed in the operation of any vessel, if the jury finds the defendant not guilty of the crime of manslaughter, the jury may render a verdict of negligent homicide."

Michigan Compiled Laws

"Involuntary manslaughter usually refers to an unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony (such as DUI). The usual distinction from voluntary manslaughter is that involuntary manslaughter (sometimes called "criminally negligent homicide") is a crime in which the victim's death is unintended..."

http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/a-z/man...nvoluntary.html

United States Code

TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

PART I - CRIMES

CHAPTER 51 - HOMICIDE

U.S. Code as of: 01/19/04

Section 1112. Manslaughter

(a) Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without

malice. It is of two kinds:

Voluntary - Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.

Involuntary - In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting

to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without

due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce

death.

"... just as it is not manslaughter when a man's own heart fails him. It's unstoppable."

No. Once he is dead, he is unprosecutable. If attempted suicide is a crime, then, not taking care of yourself -- refusing adequate medical attention; lack of exercise; poor diet -- would be criminal by some traditionalist logic. However, Objectivists seek objective law and objectively, you have a right to kill yourself.

The question is, assuming that life begins at conception, do you have the right to endanger the unborn? Are you culpable for your negligent or accidental acts?

I believe that life begins at conception. However, I accept infanticide as a solution to some problems. And I see no way to divide the continuum from conception to six weeks to six months to birth to sixty years of age. Your mother always has the right to kill you. (Mother's Day is May 10. Better send her a card.... or maybe flowers... take her to dinner...)

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The Andes survivors (plane crash) ate some of their dead team mates, rather than starve to death.

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Michael:

Mother Faces Breastfeeding While Intoxicated Charge - also child neglect!

Full story and documents can be found here:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...1.html?link=eaf

Las Vegas: Lots more examples in history. One that comes to mind is the Donner Party - "Caught without shelter in a raging blizzard, four of the party died. The survivors resorted to cannibalism, then continued on their journey; three more died and were also cannibalized. Close to death, the seven surviving snowshoers—two men and all five of the women—finally reached safety on the western side of the mountains on January 18, 1847."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_party

Adam

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We are all free to believe whatever we want. If you believe a fertilized egg has the same rights as the mother in whose body it resides then that's your prerogative, but when you live in a society with other people it is not your own private belief that counts - it is what the law states.

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We are all free to believe whatever we want. If you believe a fertilized egg has the same rights as the mother in whose body it resides then that's your prerogative, but when you live in a society with other people it is not your own private belief that counts - it is what the law states.

No, GS, that is a range-of-the-moment, context-free, subjectivist error that no Objectivist would commit. Moreover, your willingness to enshrine fashion contradicts 2500 years of civilized thought. From about 600 BCE forward, the best thinkers have attempted to settle the problem of the role of government in society. The Jews had judges, but they wanted a king. "Give us a king," they demanded of God. "You'll be sorry," God replied. "Give us a king," they said. He gave them Saul, and it went downhill from there. Antigone consecrated the bodies of her slain brothers in defiance of the law. Confucius counseled obedience to the law, but required first that the law be just. Justice exists before the law and the law exists before the state.

We here on OL are not interested in a popularity poll. We search for objective truth. Of course, GS, you believe that truth is whatever the dictionary claims that most people seem to think that everyone else might expect it to be, perhaps.

We know what the law is. We want to know what is right.

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We know what the law is. We want to know what is right.

So you believe there is an absolute right law for every situation? Sounds like a recipe for totalitarianism. What do you do with the people who disagree with your laws?

Edited by general semanticist
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Michael,

If negligence was to blame for the death of a fetus by means of miscarriage, then I do believe that the mother should be held responsible for the crime of child negligence in a court of law. If the child was a miscarriage due to misfortune, then it was a death of natural causes and should not be addressed in any sort of legal manor.

Brad

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Michael,

If negligence was to blame for the death of a fetus by means of miscarriage, then I do believe that the mother should be held responsible for the crime of child negligence in a court of law. If the child was a miscarriage due to misfortune, then it was a death of natural causes and should not be addressed in any sort of legal manor.

Brad

A fetus is NOT a child. It is not a person. A fetus has no rights. And there is no sure way of determining whether a miscarriage was natural or caused by negligence. Your are wrong four ways in one posting. Good going!

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Gentleman:

Define your terms and come out swinging!

Seriously, fetus means ___________________________.

Child means_____________________________.

"potential life" means ____________________________.

Otherwise, you are just talking past each other and it is not really an argument that can even be resolved.

The debate is essentially the definition of the terms.

Adam

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Michael,

If negligence was to blame for the death of a fetus by means of miscarriage, then I do believe that the mother should be held responsible for the crime of child negligence in a court of law. If the child was a miscarriage due to misfortune, then it was a death of natural causes and should not be addressed in any sort of legal manor.

Brad

A fetus is NOT a child. It is not a person. A fetus has no rights. And there is no sure way of determining whether a miscarriage was natural or caused by negligence. Your are wrong four ways in one posting. Good going!

Ba'al Chatzaf

I think we have a serious fundamental difference of opinion here. I have the same passion for the fact that a fetus IS a person as you have that is is not. I do not think we will ever find a middle ground on this issue. A fetus has rights, one can determine whether a miscarriage was natural or caused by negligence, and, again, a fetus is a child.

Your are wrong four ways in one posting. Good going!

Brad

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Gentleman:

Define your terms and come out swinging!

Seriously, fetus means ___________________________.

Child means_____________________________.

"potential life" means ____________________________.

Otherwise, you are just talking past each other and it is not really an argument that can even be resolved.

The debate is essentially the definition of the terms.

Adam

Adam,

I don't think that the definitions of fetus, child, and potential life are the one's that need be defined. The one we are having issue on is life and when begins. Life is synonymous with Natural Rights, and having parallel views on the definition of life would avoid this discussion in its entirety.

Brad

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I don't think that the definitions of fetus, child, and potential life are the one's that need be defined. The one we are having issue on is life and when begins. Life is synonymous with Natural Rights, and having parallel views on the definition of life would avoid this discussion in its entirety.

Brad

The bacteria in my gut are alive. They have no rights. So life is not synonymous with Natural Rights.

Do you think just because an electrochemical entity can replicate itself or parts of itself in the entirety, it has Rights?

Wrong again! How do you mange to not get anything right?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Ba'al:

Does wisdom impart better to a person if you intellectually shout at them?

Adam

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Ba'al:

Does wisdom impart better to a person if you intellectually shout at them?

Adam

Probably not. And I didn't shout. I jibed and mocked. I get a little (actually, very) annoyed at people attempting to ordain that fetuses which grow inside women by a natural processes are persons. They can't think (at least at an early stage of development). There is no evidence that a fetus can formulate an intention. There is no evidence that a fetus is aware of itself in the way that you or I are aware of ourselves. Not an iota of evidence, yet people who think this way are ready to frame up women and perhaps send them to prison. Government extends to the space and time external to persons, not to their insides. Inside is private property. Very private.

This latest movement to ordain that fetuses are persons is the first step to a tyranny that is well described in Atwood's novel -A Handmaid's Tale-. It is, ironically, the photo-negative of the way that Negroes were ordained by law not to be persons, but property. Now the would be tyrants are ready to ordain that property (the fetus within the woman) is a person. A woman owns every cell that grows within her body by natural processes. You cannot get more private ownership than this.

The sure sign of a barbarian is the inability to distinguish between what is theirs and what is not. The fetus within a women is not theirs to dispose of. Period. End of Story. The hazard that a women is subject to by going to term is not theirs to assign or impose.

I detest the anti-abortionist creed almost as much as I detest and despise the Jihadist creed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Ba'al:

Understandable.

You make a good argument. However, the use of abortion as a contraceptive does not "feel" right. This issue goes "past" pure

science and involves the hard wired emotions.

Once again, I have a major issue with the argument that the male participant has no "standing" to protect that potential life that has a part of his genomic "essence" or property, if your argument can be consistent, the male has standing.

Geez, pretty soon we will be reading tea leaves for insight. lol

Adam

Edited by Selene
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Once again, I have a major issue with the argument that the male participant has no "standing" to protect that potential life that has a part of his genomic "essence" or property, if your argument can be consistent, the male has standing.

Geez, pretty soon we will be reading tea leaves for insight. lol

Adam

It is the female's life that is at risk. She has the final say. No man ever died in childbirth.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Yes Ba'al and no female died of flack flying a B-52 over Germany in 1944.

What does that have to do with the price of peaches in Tangiers?

I understand your point, but risk versus reward may not be that obvious in this issue.

Does anyone have the numbers on deaths in pregnancies in the US?

I would like to see those.

Adam

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A woman has a right to get an abortion. That's the Objectivist position. To say she doesn't, default's one, basically, into a common conservative position. Cuturally the Objectivist position comes from Judaism while the conservative one comes from Christianity. I support a woman's right to have an abortion, but the deeper into the pregnancy one goes the grayer things get until the situation is murderous.

Human rights are a human invention to govern social existence. They are natural because they are based on man's nature, but you will find no rights in a man. It doesn't matter when and if a fetus is referred to as a person or unborn baby or anything else; it's context is biological, not social. I feel the right-to-lifers think they have actual metaphysical, corporeal existence albeit integrated into the human organism. If this were true then even the morning after pill would be a rights' violation--some kind of homocide.

I think the best way to deal with abortion is to help create a society, a culture, that promotes child-bearing. For one thing that'd demand getting rid of the welfare state including social security and medicare/medicaid. If being able to take care of yourself in old age worries you you might get rich or have a lot of children. One or two of the little buggers might subsequently help you out.

I'm not getting into any abortion debate. I am willing to discuss human rights per se, though.

--Brant

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Brant:

"I support a woman's right to have an abortion, but the deeper into the pregnancy one goes the grayer things get until the situation is murderous."

Exactly, and as technology moves exponentially forward, it will be an option to preserve the potential life in a host and not jeopardize the health of the woman will make things greyer still until they are totally black and white.

"I think the best way to deal with abortion is to help create a society, a culture, that promotes child-bearing." Yes indeed. The elimination of the government's incessant unconstitutional interference in American citizen's families would also be required.

The complete elimination of all "special courts" associated with families, e.g., domestic violence courts, drug courts, child support courts and custody courts. Violent crime does not change when you cross the door jam to your home. They should be treated in a regular criminal court.

Drugs should be fully decriminalized.

Hell bringing back dueling would be cost effective versus divorce and family courts!

Adam

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I would like to see those.

Adam

Even one death in child-birth makes the point. Child bearing is hazardous. Who should determine what risk shall be borne? Easy. The potential victim.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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