2 Deep PRO-LIFE Questions from an atheist

[Gorgias]

No comparison for bodily autonomy.

It succeeds where Damian’s example fails – the notion of the ‘owner’ requesting the ‘unwelcome passenger’ vacate the premises in a way that kills her. Claiming that it’s ‘denigrating’ is simply a red herring. I’m sorry if you don’t like that the example succeeds where Damian’s fails – especially since it counters ya’ll’s argument – but that’s the beauty of the example.

in my state a property owner can kill someone under “stand your ground"

Another red herring – unless you can equate a fetus with a criminal who breaks and enters.

Also, a property owner can go to the court and file to have a person forcibly removed from the premises.

Agreed – but that misses the point, too, since the property owner won’t be able to do so if it can be shown that eviction causes the death of the person. So… nice try, but none of your examples work as well as mine (even if mine isn’t perfect).

Btw, a fetus isn’t “owned” by the woman, either.

Btw, I never claimed that the schoolgirl was owned by the bus operator; I claimed that the bus was. (Which is the whole point of the example – the owner of the entity in which the girl is trapped is the one making the claim of ownership and right to evict (and thereby, to kill).)

 

[goout]

goout:

That is absolute bodily autonomy.

No it isn’t. I am only addressing the right of bodily autonomy vs right to life comparison.

Gee, your assertion of bodily bodily autonomy isn’t an absolute assertion, it’s just absolute in relation to human life.
That’s about as vacuous of logic as can be.

It’s almost embarrassing to have to ask these questions, but they need to be asked for your benefit.
Is the right to bodily autonomy proper to a cat?
Is the right to bodily autonomy proper to my dead grandmother?
Is the right to bodily autonomy proper to my motorcycle?

No, bodily autonomy is proper to a living human being. When you subject human life to bodily autonomy your thoughts are upside down.

The pro-death side can do better than this. The BA assertion is very popular now, and seems to be the latest misguided “gotcha”, as if the pro-deathers just invented new logic. But ironically for those who would worship reason, this is stupidity at it’s worst, as it’s just another vacuous circular black hole.

The honest assertion you might make is “human life is subject to opinion, power, and political force”. We can at least respect that honesty and argue about how heinous it is.

The bodily autonomy argument is a naked farce.

 

[Ghosty1981]

I believe in the most universal drivers that we all experience in the promotion of human flurishment as the result. We all need food, shelter, companionship, safety, etc. to maintain our physical and psychological well-being.

Need is not the same as a right. Humans all have common needs, but on what grounds do you consider these needs to be rights? You seem to waver between these being natural rights and social allowances depending on the circumstance, and this is not a sustainable position for an argument.

My culture will grant that the fetus is a human being just like anyone else is and as such has the same rights as anyone else. So it does not get to have it’s life continued by forcing someone else to give up their bodily rights to do this.

So you don’t believe in rights, you believe in social privileges. You give no foundation for your cultural values, and therefore absolutely no reason for bodily autonomy to be upheld over and against dependency. You have no basis of argument other than social sentiment, so you can’t claim any kind of moral superiority in your position. You can’t even justify your position that bodily autonomy is a right, let alone that it supersedes the right to life.

We’re just not going to agree here.

Your position is hopelessly muddled if you can’t see how falling from a cliff is different from a natural bodily process.

Didn’t see that was what you were driving at, obviously. Any human process, including choice, is a natural process because using your brain is a natural process.

Indeed.

The mental state, conscious state, any other state of the person using someone else’s body does not supersede the right of the person to withdraw the use of their body to save that person

Demonstrate some foundation for this right and you will have a position to argue from. At this point you have merely asserted with absolutely no backing beyond social sentiment and privilege.

Peace and God bless!

 

[MamaJewel]

Hi Gorgias,

Damian’s example is spot on for bodily autonomy. A six year old girl is injured in a car crash by her parents’ or another person’s negligence. They are not legally compelled to give direct use of their bodies for her to stay alive. They cannot be court ordered to give their blood/tissues/organs to sustain the injured child’s life.

How does your bus owner/ injured child analogy compare to bodily autonomy? Your example falls under property rights not bodily autonomy. And bus ownership and conveyance laws will exclude an owner’s demand of immediate removal of an injured person. However, back to the example, an injured little girl on a bus isn’t deriving a benefit from the direct use of the bus owner’s body. She is not directly utilizing the owner’s blood/tissue/fluids/organs to keep her alive or mitigate her injuries. So your example doesn’t add up.

Oh, and I was mistaken with stand your ground. Anyone can kill another person if he or she is in fear for their life or the life of another. There doesn’t have to be property ownership nor criminal activity.

I understand your frustration. I really do. But the Supreme Court has ruled the way it has, and technology has changed the practice of medicine and the way society regulates informed consent and the concept of bodily autonomy. The laws that gave women the right to abort are the same laws that ultimately protected my right to decide the size of my family when the health department would have rather given me contraceptives or a tubal ligation. (Two of my many pregnancies were COBRA/ Medicaid covered, thus the state’s perspective.)

 

[Elf01]

Damian’s example is spot on for bodily autonomy. A six year old girl is injured in a car crash by her parents’ or another person’s negligence. They are not legally compelled to give direct use of their bodies for her to stay alive. They cannot be court ordered to give their blood/tissues/organs to sustain the injured child’s life.

Did you respond to my even closer example of conjoined twins who share a vital organ?

My scenario is that if the separation is done in 9 months both twins have a very good chance of survival.

If done immediately one will die and the other will survive.

Does the surviving twins right to bodily autonomy trump their twins right to life?

 

[MamaJewel]

Yes I did respond.
Conjoined twins who share a vital organ, share a vital organ. Please give me one case of your example of conjoined twins sharing a vital organ having a very good chance of survival from separation within time frames you describe. Your example is hypothetical.
Even with current technology, both twins are at risk of dying during separation when a vital organ is involved. Both twins are often at a greater risk for debilitating conditions and disability following separation. They share a conjoined body so physicians and ethicists consider them as one, even though they have two separate bodies. Meaning that the twins came to be born sharing the vital organ. Most of their life has been based on that shared organ.

There is not a black and white answer to your question. The healthcare team would look at this scenario on a case by case basis.

 

[Damian]

Not going to agree on this since the bus is not someone’s body. There’s a difference between using someone’s goods and services and using someone’s body. You’re not being honest to the readers or to this discussion for presenting an example this absurd, so I believe you’re just trolling now.

 

[Damian]

Gee, your assertion of bodily bodily autonomy isn’t an absolute assertion, it’s just absolute in relation to human life

Yes I believe there are rights that supersede right to life. Such as my right to assault you does not supersede my right to life for you to defend yourself against me.

 

[Damian]

Need is not the same as a right.

The needs that we are willing to fight for are a right to us. So I don’t agree with your splitting hairs here. Our physical and psychological drivers (aka needs, rights, etc.) that we are willing to draw a line in the sand for are rights to us based on how far we are willing to go to demand those “needs”.

So you don’t believe in rights, you believe in social privileges

You can interpret anyway you want what I wrote. I believe my position that I’ve presented can stand on its own and is not really to be interpreted in the way you are wanting it to be.

 

[Gorgias]

Damian’s example is spot on for bodily autonomy.

I’ll grant that, in a limited sense. Where Damian’s example falls flat is that it fails to model dependence on a particular other for one’s own life. That’s why it isn’t terribly illustrative.

Your example falls under property rights not bodily autonomy.

Two thoughts:
First, no analogy is perfect. So, yeah… mine isn’t perfect, either, but I think it does capture a dynamic that the other example fails to capture.

Second, what is bodily autonomy, at an abstract level, other than an assertion of ‘property rights’ over one’s body?

And bus ownership and conveyance laws will exclude an owner’s demand of immediate removal of an injured person

That’s what’s illustrative here: assertion of the rights of one’s own body, likewise, should exclude a demand of immediate removal of a person, where that removal will kill that person.

However, back to the example, an injured little girl on a bus isn’t deriving a benefit from the direct use of the bus owner’s body. She is not directly utilizing the owner’s blood/tissue/fluids/organs to keep her alive or mitigate her injuries. So your example doesn’t add up.

It’s not trying to look at the bus owner’s body, or fluids, or tissue. It’s illustrating the point that the girl retains the right to her life, regardless of competing assertions of rights which will deny her of her life.

Anyone can kill another person if he or she is in fear for their life or the life of another.

This doesn’t help your case. A fetus doesn’t threaten his mother’s life. There isn’t a reasonable “fear for her life” here. And that’s the standard – the reasonableness of the fear.

Not going to agree on this since the bus is not someone’s body. There’s a difference between using someone’s goods and services and using someone’s body.

Agreed. Just as, in your example, there’s a difference between a parent (upon whose tissues a born child does not depend for life) and their child’s life. Both examples demonstrate certain aspects of the debate, and fail to demonstrate other certain aspects. However, I think that my example comes closer to capturing the essence of the debate. To-may-to, to-mah-to, eh?

I believe you’re just trolling now.

Right. Clearly, anyone who disagrees with your opinion or your example is merely a troll.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

He may be pursuaded with some rational arguments. And, most of the time in online discussions, the onlookers are more important than the person that the information is directed at.

He is not seeking an open-minded rational argument.

He is not seeking understanding.

He is seeking to make a point and exercise some form of percieved superiority.

Thus no level of rational argument that will satisfy him. The only response is prayer and charity.

 

[goout]

goout:

Gee, your assertion of bodily bodily autonomy isn’t an absolute assertion, it’s just absolute in relation to human life

Yes I believe there are rights that supersede right to life. Such as my right to assault you does not supersede my right to life for you to defend yourself against me.

Really, what kind of rights are those? Are they human rights? Or are they cat’s rights?
You might think this is silly and combative, but the question is begged.

If you are talking about human rights, aren’t you assuming these rights are proper to a living human being, not a corpse, and not a cat, and not a rock?

If so, your claim that human rights supersede the right to live is entirely circular. Those rights refer to something you deny. And that doesn’t quite work.

“I think oak trees are special and I want to grow a bunch of them. But acorns are optional”.
Doesn’t make any sense.

 

[Elf01]

If you are talking about human rights, aren’t you assuming these rights are proper to a living human being, not a corpse, and not a cat, and not a rock?

Actually I’ll take the pro aborts side there. Organ donation must be consented to, even if you are dead. Either by a choice you made when you were alive or by your family when you die.

The healthcare team would look at this scenario on a case by case basis.

Would you agree that the only scenario in which an immediate separation would be considered would be if the health of the twin who would survive is seriously compromised?

 

[goout]

goout:

If you are talking about human rights, aren’t you assuming these rights are proper to a living human being, not a corpse, and not a cat, and not a rock?

Actually I’ll take the pro aborts side there. Organ donation must be consented to, even if you are dead. Either by a choice you made when you were alive or by your family when you die.

That’s true.
And the assertion is made that a human right to bodily autonomy is prior to the right to human life. And that makes zero sense, unless dead people and cats have a right to bodily autonomy.
It’s a very simple question: do cats and dead people have a right to bodily autonomy?
Gravity’s not really necessary, I have a right to walk.

(we can evaluate the morality of forced organ donation vs the nurturing of the natural growth process, that’s a related but separate issue)

 

[Elf01]

It’s a very simple question: do cats and dead people have a right to bodily autonomy?

Since the dead person has to have consented or their family must consent I think the argument can be made that dead people do have the right to bodily autonomy.

 

[vz71]

I think the argument can be made that dead people do have the right to bodily autonom

How many dead people express an interest in anything?

 

[goout]

Amazing…

 

[Damian]

Are they human rights?

They are human rights because we are asserting them as rights by drawing a line in the sand for this need/want/driver/what ever else you want to call it. We’re willing to not give an inch for that issue.
Cats rights are what ever they are willing to draw a line in the sand for as well.

aren’t you assuming these rights are proper to a living human being, not a corpse,

No. And yes to a human corpse as well. Because our understanding of how we are to be respected, in body for example, when we are not present to defend our position is just as important to us as if we were there to defend it and we rely on the social contract of altruism to do this for each other. Same reason we don’t think its fine to rape coma patients as well. But according to your method, what ever they don’t know what happened to them isn’t wrong when we apply your method.

If so, your claim that human rights supersede the right to live is entirely circular. Those rights refer to something you deny.

How so?

“I think oak trees are special and I want to grow a bunch of them. But acorns are optional”.
Doesn’t make any sense.

Sure that follows. So anyone that requires someone else’s body to stay alive through the use of someone else’s body is optional to you? The cancer patient that dies because they didn’t get the bone marrow transplant is optional to the person who knew they could donate bone marrow to save their life? I don’t like it when people die due to issues like this any more than anyone else does, but I don’t like it more when we force people against their wills to have to donate organs, bone marrow, uterus, etc. to keep someone else alive. Want an even playing field to argue back on? Then force the laws to change where men are legally obligated to lose their bodily rights to save the life of their child, regardless of their child’s age. Make it where those fathers can be held legally accountable for taking drugs and drinking alcohol while being a parent, and then maybe we’ll take your position seriously since unfortunately we can always claim that this is a sexist law to have against women as it stands now.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

There’s a difference between using someone’s goods and services and using someone’s body.

Have you backed up why they aren’t the same?

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Since the dead person has to have consented or their family must consent I think the argument can be made that dead people do have the right to bodily autonomy.

Families having rights over other people’s bodies seems to be contrary to the pro-choice stance. Not that you stand for that. Plus there are instances like in the relics of saints, archaeology, autopsies and in certain conditions funerals and the way the body is treated afterwards are done without consent.