From: parker@ehsn5.cen.uiuc.edu (Robert S. Parker)
Subject: Re: Embryos as Property?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 05:43:49 GMT
Keywords: Property rights, abortion, compensation for involuntary loss

Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:

>bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt) writes...

>>goid@zooid.guild.org (Will Steeves) writes:

>># Of course, if embryos *are* property, then why could it not be argued
>># that *both* of the people who contributed to its creation, should have
>># rights to "its" disposition?

>>Because personal property rights don't work that way.  The only people
>>who have a right to control private property are the owners of the
>>property.

>Why would you consider the woman as being the only "owner"?  Is it not the
>case that all those who share credit for building a property, share jointly
>in its ownership, unless it could be argued that one party did more or less
>than the other, towards the actual building or creation?  Indeed, the fact
>that the woman is solely responsible for "its" nurture is irrelevant to the
>issue of *how* "it" was created, is it not?  However, while it *is* true
>that it could be said that the woman is a greater contributor to the actual
>post-creation "building" of the "property," should this not give him merely
>*less* ownership as opposed to *none at all*?

[more arguing deleted]

>So perhaps it *isn't* an issue of *joint* ownership, since the woman
>contributes more the actual building than the man (though not more with
>respect to the actual creation), but while this should give him *less* of
>a stake in ownership, I see no reason why there should be an implication
>of *none* whatsoever, since he at least shared equally in the actual
>creation of the "property".

Actually, the woman contributes much more towards the creation as well.
The egg is much more massive than the sperm.  It's like this:

One person owns a factory and has a lot of resources, including several
design engineers on staff.  Another person owns no factory, but otherwise
has the same resources except that he has many times the number of engineers
on staff.  The second person sends a large number of engineers to the first
person's factory, but she only lets one of them in.  That one engineer teams
up with one of her many engineers and they come up with a design.

The factory takes those plans and some material that was on hand already and
starts to build it.  Eventually the material on hand runs low and the owner
orders more materials from suppliers.  The second person has just as much
resources, but doesn't contribute any of them, nor does he pay the engineers
that went to the factory any more.  (Actually, no one does, but that doesn't
fit with the analogy very well.  Maybe we could say the two engineers train
many other engineers from personell provided by the factory owner.)

Eventually, the factory turns out a single (very complicated) item consisting
of almost entirely of materials provided by the factory owner, and plans made
jointly by the two engineers.  Now tell me, can the second person make any
reasonable claim on the item?  Remember that the engineers he sent over were
no longer in his employ when they left.


This is assuming that an embryo could be considered "property" (the basis
of the whole argument).

>Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"

-Rob
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.sys.sun.misc