From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Medical Enforcers? (Was: Holtsinger on Harassment & Health)
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 07:31:00 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.154654.25918@samba.oit.unc.edu> Suzanne-lucia.Demitrio@launchpad.unc.edu (Suzanne-lucia Demitrio) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.032641.23855@rotag.mi.org> 
>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Nov15.053904.11401@samba.oit.unc.edu> 
>>Suzanne-lucia.Demitrio@launchpad.unc.edu (Suzanne-lucia Demitrio) writes:
>>>
>>>Well, if by 'killing a possible person' you mean taking actions designed
>>>to kill any person who might be there, I can think of two offhand: 
>>>shooting at a man-shaped pile of rags in a dark alley, and dropping large
>>>rocks off an overpass onto the busy highway below.  Manslaughter.
>>
>>You seem to be confusing "possibly killing a person" with "killing a possible
>>person". Those are not interchangeable terms.
>
>I know.  I'm trying to probe the legal nature of Elizabeth's 'possible
>person'.  That's why I began with 'if', and made another guess in the next
>paragraph:
>
>>>Or do you mean to define a new legal category, inferior to personhood,
>>>called 'possible personhood'?  Have you thought about the implications of
>>>doing that?
>>
>>Whereas you define a new legal category, even _more_ inferior to personhood,
>>called "human organism non-personhood"? 
>
>New?  What about the dead?

Hmmmm... It's arguable whether a corpse would be considered an "organism".
For the sake of argument, however, I'll amend that to "living human organism
non-personhood". Better?

>I'm simply putting fetuses into the old category of non-personhood -- we
>no more need to neologize it with the modifier 'human organism' than we
>need to speak of, say, chocolate-cake non-personhood, or wombat
>non-personhood.

It *IS* a living human organism, however, and by and large such entities
have rights, do they not, as opposed to chocolate cakes and wombats, which
NEVER have human rights?

>>You're criticizing her for a watered-down form
>>of what you take to extremes, hypocrite.
>
>No, Kevin.  I'm criticizing her for an incoherent approach to the problem.
>I think that a doctrine of fetal personhood, in any form, spells legal
>disaster -- it gives new and inappropriate powers to government, and
>encourages meddling with the concept of constitutional rights.

Sounds awfully ominous. Why do you suppose the fabric of our entire 
Constitutional system will come completely unraveled just because we decide
to put personhood at point "X" instead of point "Y"? Do you think that all
Con Law rests on the minutiae of personhood definitions?

>>>no power in our society (outside military contexts) has the legal
>>>authority to 'balance' rights to survival among two living persons.  Not
>>>the courts, and certainly not doctors.  We may acquit self-defense
>>>afterwards, but we can't authorize manslaughter in advance.  Which is a
>>>very, very good thing when you think about it.
>>
>>Balderdash. Legislators and judges balance rights all the time. Our entire
>>body of law is a gargantuan balancing act. 
>
>I was speaking specifically of the right to *survival*.  No power in our
>society can legitimately resolve conflicts between two parties' rights to
>survive, and mandate killing the loser.  

Rarely does one citizen's life come into DIRECT competition with another
one's, Suzanne, but when they do, the law most certainly does a balancing
act. Deadly force used in self-defense, for example, or the laws governing
who gets to live, and who gets to die, in a lifeboat adrift at sea. Just
because it's rare, doesn't mean the law CAN'T balance these rights. By
"not deciding", the law would be favoring the "stronger" party, in any case 
-- the woman, in the case of abortion -- so in a deeper sense, the law
can't ESCAPE making a decision one way or the other. The only question is
whether the choice is implicit or explicit.

>>Please clearly identify this "infectiously rotten" [sic] premise.
>
>The premise that any personhood rights can be consistently granted to
>fetuses under our legal system.

Non-arbitrarily, no. Consistently, yes. Just pick a point, and stick with it.
That's arbitrary AND consistent. Although I happen to disagree with it, I see 
nothing UNWORKABLE about that approach...

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion