From: sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Observations
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:56:17 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <1992Oct3.224036.1631@rotag.mi.org>, kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
|> In article <Sep20.003644.94110@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >In article <ta3nb-d.gordons@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
|> >|> Long article folks.
|> >|> 
|> >|> <Sep15.211521.72108@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|> ><g2yn=gf.gordons@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
|> >|> >|> <Sep14.172042.44575@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|> >|> ><kzwnk!r.gordons@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
|> >|> >|> >|> <Sep12.071229.20901@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|> ...
|> >|> >	You seem to be assuming that merely because certain legal restrictions
|> >|> >are applied to certain groups on the basis of age that those groups do not have a
|> >|> >right to life, liberty or property.
|> >|> 
|> >|> No, I'm not assuming that at all.
|> >
|> >	The point of all this is that we do not pick an arbirary age
|> >at which a child's rights are "granted."  We do not and must not
|> >draw an arbitrary line for when a child's right to life begins. 
|> >Restricting the voting age to 18 and over is not a violation of
|> >anybody's rights -- parents are merely holding those rights in trust
|> >until such time as the right in question can be used for the benefit
|> >of the child and without violating the rights of everybody else.
|> 
|> This is absolutely absurd, Steven. Rights of minors are not "held in trust",
|> they simply DON'T EXIST in many cases, such as voting, ability to enter into
|> contracts, etc.

	I disagree.  If rights are "granted" by anyone then they are not rights,
but privileges.  I do not believe in the "privilege" of life but in a RIGHT to
life, an inalienable RIGHT which nobody can take from me, but which I might waive
in various ways.

|> Do you even understand what a right IS, Steven?

	Yes.

|> It's not just an abstraction
|> that can be assigned at will to anything whatsoever -- every legal right 
|> corresponds to a legal DUTY on the part of others.

	In a sense, perhaps.  If I have a right to life, it follows that everyone
else has a duty not to kill me.  However, their duty is a negative, not a
positive.  If I have a right to property, it is the duty of others not to steal
from me -- or if they do steal, to make restitution.

|> In the case of voting,
|> no-one has a duty to honor a vote cast by a minor -- the minor can vote as
|> much as they want, but no-one has a legal duty to honor it. Nor does anyone 
|> have a legal duty to honor a contract entered into by a minor, generally 
|> speaking.

	I agree, but only because those rights are temporarily held in trust by
the parents.
	Kevin, do you think that the right to enter into a contract is "granted"
by some person or institution?  Then WHAT person or institution?  And can that
person or institution WITHHOLD such a right?  And for what reasons?  For how
long?  And for all the specifics you cite, WHY are those particulars the correct
ones?  Are they simply arbitrary?  And who gets to make these arbitrary
decisions?  And why?
	I maintain that every living human being owns his or her own body, and I
maintain that this fact is the philosophical basis of human rights: the right to
life, liberty, and property.  If you deny that some people own their own bodies
then you assert that they are slaves; and if they are slaves, it is only because
of the mercy of their masters that they ever become free.  Is that your position?

|> None of this entails "holding rights in trust", Steven. That concept seems to 
|> be purely of your own invention. If you wish to pursue it, then please provide
|> some supporting authoritative legal cites. 

	I make all philosophical statements on my own authority, relying on
reason, not books, to defend them.  I do not say that my philosophy on human
rights is currently accepted or even that it is perfect; but I do maintain that
it is the best theory I have heard so far and I am prepared to debate it with you
at length.

|> >|> >	Why?  Unborn children violate no laws.
|> >|> 
|> >|> Yes, they do - arbitrarily decided by the woman.  If she *wants* to be
|> >|> pregnant then no law is broken.  If she doesn't want to be pregnant then
|> >|> the fetus is trespassing.
|> >
|> >	A child is not trespassing because he can be removed at any time.  
|>                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> Amen!
|> 
|> >Just not killed.
|> 
|> If a pre-viable z/e/f is going to die from the removal ANYWAY, what possible
|> social benefit can there be to NOT killing it first, if such a method reduces
|> the risks and or economic cost of the procedure? Any restrictions on pre-viable
|> abortions, short of possibly anaesthetizing the fetus, are little more than
|> symbolic gestures, are they not?

	If the pre-viable fetus is removed and it dies, I would hold the mother
and the doctor liable for gross negligence.  If they both KNEW and INTENDED for
it to die, it's murder 1.

|> >Nor neglected to death.  The mother is responsible for the life of her child.
|> 
|> Not Constitutionally, Steven. Only because the _States_ mandate it.

	Constitutionally, perhaps not.  Morally, always.  Legally, the mother
SHOULD always be responsible if her child dies because of her negligence or
intent to kill.

|> >|> >|> Those in a coma?  Good enough, and technically unable to vioalte the law.
|> >|> >
|> >|> >	Those in a coma are NOT AWARE OF ANYTHING.  My dog is probably more aware
|> >|> >then most comatose folks, and I don't even have a dog.  Why should those who are
|> >|> >not aware and who may never be aware again be considered persons?
|> >|> 
|> >|> Because they were once aware and have a history of communication and
|> >|> shared experience with other people.  And because they aren't inside of the
|> >|> body of someone who doesn't want them there.
|> >
|> >	OH, I see.  So it's not JUST awareness now, is it?  Now,
|> >apparently, PAST awareness and "a history of shared communication"
|> >are important too!  Any other important little details I should know
|> >about?  Any other criteria besides awareness, past awareness, and
|> >having a history of shared communication that might crop up later?
|> >	Hee, hee, hee.  You're making these up as you go along,
|> >aren't you Gordon?
|> >	Besides, I don't see what past awareness has to do with
|> >anything.  Dead people were once aware, but I don't suppose you'll
|> >be so kind as to give THEM any rights, will you?  Why on earth
|> >should past awareness count for anything?  Just because you think it
|> >should?
|> >	And why should a history of anything have any relevance? 
|> >Immanuel Kant has an extensive history of shared communication (if
|> >you want to use that word) with others; by your logic, he's about
|> >due for something in the way of rights.
|> 
|> There is no "shared communication" in the case of Immanuel Kant. In the
|> first place, any "communication" is one-way: Kant can "communicate" to us,
|> but we can't "communicate" back. Therefore, it's not "shared" communication.
|> In the second place, Kant is not "communicating", only his works are. Do you 
|> really want to grant personhood to a bunch of dusty old Philosophy textbooks
|> (I've heard, from some of my profs who read him in the original German, that 
|> Kant was a pretty bad writer, anyhow, but not nearly as bad as Hegel)???

	Immanuel Kant, when he was alive, had a long history of shared
communication.  He can communicate no longer.  Ditto with the man in a coma.
	I've never read Hegel, but I was foolish enough to plow through Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason (well, ok, not ALL THE WAY through...).  Don't try it.
	But you're missing the point.  I'm saying, I've BEEN saying, that Kant
has no rights (since he is not alive).  He's gone now, despite his long history
of shared communication -- all that nonsense means nothing vis-a-vis his rights. 
Same with the man in a coma.  He doesn't have rights because he has a history of
shared communication, but because he's a living human being.

|> >	And there you go with that "being in someone else's body"
|> >again.  Apparently it still doesn't faze you that the woman put the
|> >child there in the first place.  
|> 
|> She should have a right to "put it in" OR "take it out", Steven. And, as long 
|> as the z/e/f doesn't have a chance of biological independence, and doesn't feel
|> pain, there shouldn't be any silly restrictions on HOW she "takes it out" 
|> either. Why make things more difficult and/or risky and/or costly than they
|> need to be?

	What is this, Kevin?  I always thought you were a pro-lifer.
	Why make it more costly/difficult/inconvenient than it needs to be? 
Because the life of a living human being is at stake.  A life which is there, not
by his or her request, but by the mother's voluntary behavior.  A life for which
the mother is responsible.
	She put it in, all right; she caused it to exist.  But now that it does
exist, she cannot simply kill it at her pleasure.

|> Weren't you the one blubbering about "property rights" a while back?

	No.  I don't believe in blubbering.  But I was upholding the right of
property.

|> Well, if 
|> it helps, think of the non-viable z/e/f as the woman's property, to dispose 
|> of as she sees fit. You wouldn't want to compromise her property rights, now
|> would you?

	If it helps you, Kev, think of the unborn child's body as his or her own
property, bestowed upon the child at conception.  And think of the mother as
having implicitly agreed, by virtue of having CAUSED the new life to exist, to
care for and protect the child's life.

|> >|> >|> Where does it end?  Where the constitution says it ends.
|> >|> >
|> >|> >	The constitution does not grant a right to commit abortions.  
|> >|> 
|> >|> Yes, it does.  Read the 9th and 10th ammendments again please.
|> >
|> >	The ninth and tenth amendments most emphatically DO NOT
|> >grant any right to abortion.  They merely say, if I remember my
|> >Constitution correctly, that people may have other rights not
|> >ennumerated therein.  They do not say what those rights might be. 
|> 
|> Steven, learn some things about Constitutional Law. The Supreme Court ruled, 
|> in a long line of precedents prior to RvW, that States are not allowed to 
|> restrict ANY fundamental rights, unless the State can demonstrate a compelling
|> reason for doing so. Furthermore, the Court has ruled, in a long line of pre-
|> RvW precedents, that the Right to Privacy, specifically wrt reproductive/
|> family matters, IS one of those "fundamental" rights. Therefore, it followed
|> that unless the State could demonstrate a compelling interest in violating
|> reproductive Right to Privacy, it was not Constitutionally allowable. No state
|> has ever demonstrated a "compelling interest" in violating abortion rights,
|> either in RvW or subsequent cases. Therefore, the current legality of abortion
|> DOES rest upon the 9th and 14th Amendments (along with the "penumbras" of
|> other Amendments).

	What the Supreme Court has ruled is completely beside the point wrt human
rights.  The Supreme Court can be wrong; the Supreme Court can mangle and
misinterpret the constitution; the Supreme Court can, in fact, completely ignore
the original intent of the writers and insert an opinion which was never there. 
The Supreme Court can say tomorrow that a right of free speech does not exist; it
would not be any the less a fundamental right of all human beings for that reason.

Steve
Newsgroups: talk.abortion