From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Pro-choicers must condone infanticide 
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:53:22 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.130048.7921@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> edp@math.zk3.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.025342.12892@ncsu.edu>,
>dsholtsi@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>>
>>This right of separation does not lead to an unrestricted 
>>right to abortion, since most abortion procedures directly
>>violate the child's "right to bodily autonomy". . . .
>>One could justify it on the grounds that the child will die
>>anyways after separation, but this rationale would also 
>>justify intentional homicide in situations where a person 
>>can choose between leaving someone to die, or helping them 
>>to live.
>
>Your first sentence is a non sequitur -- it does not following that
>since defending one's bodily rights requires directly "violating" the
>rights of another, it is wrong to do so.  For example, if a burglar
>enters a person's home, does the homeowner not have a right to fight off
>the burglar simply because that would directly "violate" the burglar's
>bodily rights?  No, that is not the case.  The homeowner can even kill
>the burglar if that is the only way to defend the home; the burglar does
>not have a right to be free from attack, even lethal force, when
>violating the home of another person.  

Ah, but encountering a burglar in one's house in the middle of the night
is really NOT analogous to being pregnant. In the burglar example, the risks 
and consequences of various actions are in large part UNKNOWN. Does the burglar
have a concealed weapon? Is the burglar violent, and capable of killing you?
Does the burglar have some friends waiting outside? Could this turn into a
hostage/barricade situation? When are the police going to arrive, if ever? 
There are a lot of unknown variables, and therefore we give great latitude to 
the actions of the burglary-victim in that case, even allowing the use of 
lethal force, if the lethal force seems "reasonable" at the time. When dealing 
with pregnancy, that's a whole different situation. The growing fetus can be 
monitored, tested. The medical risks are known and be accurately measured in 
any given case. Where there is a serious known risk, the woman can be 
hospitalized so that, in case of sudden crisis, professional medical help 
can be summoned within seconds. Hence, given the extra knowledge and control
over pregnancy, we can validly hold the woman and her medical providers to a
much higher level of legal responsibility than the burglary-victim acting with
incomplete and/or inaccurate information in the middle of the night.

>Similarly, a fetus does not have
>what you call a "right to bodily autonomy" when it is impinging on the
>rights of another person.

It certainly has the right, to some degree, the only question is whether its 
right to BA is considered greater than, equal to, or less than the woman's 
right to BA.

>Given this reasoning, your line of argument in the second sentence
>quoted above is just silly.  The reason a burglar can be attacked is not
>because they would die or be injured anyway, 

As pointed out above, your analogy is fatally flawed, due to the factors of
knowledge of and control over the situation. I would also point out that the
burglar never LOSES the right to life; rather, the burglary-victim's right
to property, and to reasonably defend himself or herself, and perhaps others
on the property, e.g. family members, from what he or she perceives as a 
deadly threat, is in totality reckoned higher than the burglar's basic right 
to life. This "rights-balancing" explains why there are situations where the 
use of deadly force in a burglary situation is NOT justified, such as when the 
burglar is already known to be unconscious or immobilized. Similarly in the 
case of the pregnant woman and the fetus -- the fetus'es right isn't 
nullified, it's just that the pregnant woman's rights are reckoned higher.

								- Kevin