From: tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Foetus - special class of citizen?
Date: 14 Oct 92 13:23:33 GMT
Reply-To: tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U

In article <1992Oct13.171504.18846@ncsu.edu> dsh@odin.uucp (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>In article <Bw20Cz.HI2@dcs.ed.ac.uk> 
>tk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Tommy Kelly) writes:

>> I can't think of many other situations (if any at all) where a woman is
>> required by law to use her body for the benefit of someone else.
>>
>> An anti-abortion law would be unprecedented in that respect.  No?

>Obviously, pregnancy is a very special case where one individual
>resides within another's body.

That deals with the first question then.
The law would be without precedent in this respect.  Pregnancy is, as you
say, a vary special case.

>But I don't see how bodily residence, _in itself_, is significant.  

Nor do I.  But then, what *is* _intrinsically_ morally significant?

>It's no more significant than the
>fact that the fetus possesses human chromosomes.  Both are undeniable
>facts which carry no _intrinsic_ moral significance. 

Agreed.

However, bodily autonomy - despite its lack of inherent significance - 
*is* used as a principal for making laws, and generally establishing
what is and is not acceptable behaviour in our society.

The "famous violinist" scenario is often used to highlight how most of us
do agree that an unrestricted demand by one person on another persons
body is not reasonable.

Personally I think that the foetus' demands on the mother *are* reasonable.
But I must concede that I am treating the human foetus as a priveleged class.

After all, rapist don't get to demand the use of a woman's body.
Nor do "famous violinists".
Nor do any other persons - except foetuses if an anti-abortion law was made.
I *have* to acknowledge that I am discriminating *against* women *for* foetuses.

>Many pregnant women want abortions because pregnancy would disrupt 
>their life in some manner.  They have *reasons* for wanting an 
>abortion which nothing to do with facts such as bodily residence. 
>These reasons have moral significance.  Could these reasons be  
>used as a sufficiently compelling justification for killing a born 
>person? 

No.  They are not sufficiently compelling to kill unborns either.

But they *may* be sufficiently compelling to allow the *removal* of the
unborn (or born).

A woman being raped is not automatically justified (in the UK anyway - and
such should IMHO be the case elsewhere) in *killing* her attacker.  Killing
is justified only if it constitutes "reasonable force".
But she is always justified in stopping the attack - in "removing" the rapist.

In order for a foetus to be protected in the womb, it has to be treated
differently from a rapist, or any other invader of the woman's body.  It has
to have special treatment.  It has to be treated differently from every other 
"person".

Only foetuses would get the right to draw on a woman's bodily resources - noone
else.

So they would be being treated in an unprecedented way.

Such treatment is discriminatory.

tommy
Newsgroups: talk.abortion