Ah, yes, sorry I just saw it. Thanks, GEddie.
I haven’t read the US Bill of Rights as I live in the Philippines. Pro-choice said I should read the Fourth Amendment.
Pro-Choice: No. But under certain circumstances it seems reasonable to me that an adult animal ought to have more “rights” than an unborn human foetus.
Pro-Choice: What’s the murder rate where you live?
Pro-Choice: Why only humans? Why not dogs or dolphins or bananas? And why is the right inalienable?
Pro-Choice: I have acknowledged from the start that a foetus is human. I do not think that this gives it an inalienable right to life. I think it gives it a conditional right to life.
Pro-Choice: Presumably, the reason you think it is important to determine “when life begins” is because you think that as soon as life begins, the inalienable right you mentioned also springs magically into being. But why does it do that? Does a single-celled human have an inalienable right to life? Never mind that about 1/3 of such cells will spontaneously abort. And, again, why is it only human life that counts?
Pro-Choice: I don’t disagree with Gandhi on this. I disagree with you that we live in a less moral age than he did.
Pro-Choice: Very few, if any, individuals of most species give a damn about survival of the species. They care about their own survival and the survival of their own offspring.
Animals don’t have more rights than humans by virtue of the fact that they are animals, and we are humans. Notable people, from philosophers to politicians would view your claim as absolutely preposterous. Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals, for instance, asserted that “human beings prefer their own. If a dog threatens a human infant, even if it requires causing more pain to the dog to stop it, than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we favour the child. It would be monstrous to spare the dog.”. What this indicates to us is that moral intuition tells us to safeguard our own. And we place humans above animals in a wide range of circumstances, and to deny such is to deny reality.
No, they do not. Humans don’t kill humans, or at least it’s not ingrained in the human psyche to kill another human being. Murderers are regarded as “exceptions” and “anomalies” - they are not representative of the general population. The vast majority of humans have not and will not kill another human being. Even cities with the highest murder rates attest to this fact.
It’s an inalienable right because it is not for other human beings to determine who is and isn’t to live. This is why murder is wrong. That is why abortion is wrong. If you can not even grasp the concept of what an inalienable right is, perhaps you need to do further study. That is not to be mean, as it is to suggest that you are now going against the very foundations of what we humans know “a priori”: Every human, under standard conditions (i.e. disregarding death penalty, war, etc), has the right to life. It is an unquestionable fact that humans have the right to life. Even pro-choicers agree that humans have the right to life; why else do they then proceed to claim that fetus’ are non-human?
If they are human, they have the right to life. This is a very simple fact. You are no longer adding anything to the debate, but simply asking “Why? Why? Why?”. You remind me of someone who asked why “1 plus 1 is equal to 2”. We can sit around all day long and ask ourselves why “1 plus 1 is equal to 2”, but that is not going to get us anywhere. We just know, by virtue of all logic, that humans have the right to life.
Yes, it does. And that 1/3 such cells spontaneously abort is not of human doing, but of nature.
By caring about their own offspring, they are implicitly caring about the survival of the species. This is evolutionary theory 101. And again, even you admit that humans care about their own offspring. Now you need to ask yourself why are humans killing their own offspring, and it’s not recognized as murder?
So, with this logic, humans in general do not have a right to life – which in essence is saying murder is okay. Or is murder only okay based on age? Who dictates the age in which a human life can be taken for convenience – which is all abortion is? “Conditional right to life” – what conditions have to be met in order for a person to live? If you are at the age of 30 and fail to meet those conditions is murder justified?
And other Catholic theologians believe aborted and miscarried children go to heaven because neither they nor their parents have done anything to merit being parted from one another for all eternity…
Thank you for sharing the response. Unfortunately, he has entered a circular argument based on the law of land. If he would like to discuss healthier/peaceful/happier means of living, then let’s go further than the law of land.
Pro-Choice: So, it’s just speciesism, then, which is akin to racism. Just like saying that white people have more rights than black people by virtue of the fact that black people are black and white people are white.
Pro-Choice: I don’t deny this.
Pro-Choice: You’re right. Most humans don’t kill other humans. But I don’t see how this is at all relevant to deciding whether abortion is permissible or not.
Pro-Choice: Do you eat meat? Then every day you decide who is and who isn’t to live. In particular, you decide that the animal on your plate was not to live, but to provide for your nutrition and enjoyment instead. So, why are humans so special?
Pro-Choice: I grasp it just fine. An inalienable right is one that nobody can take away from you. You have not established why a foetus has an inalienable right to life. Your only argument has been that this somehow automatically follows from being human. I say it doesn’t.
Pro-Choice: What’s your position on the death penalty for murderers? You must be against it. Are you?
Pro-Choice: No. It’s an unsupported assertion, based on nothing.
Pro:Choice: I was hoping you could justify your position with logic or argument of some kind. Maybe it is too much to ask of you.
Pro: Choice: So, lay out the particular logic for me, step by step, that leads to this conclusion.
Pro:Choice: People abort their foetuses for all kinds of reasons. For example, a mother may become pregnant and feel that she will not be in a position to adequately support her child if it is born. Maybe the reasons are financial, or maybe the woman is a drug addict. Or whatever.
Mostly we tend to place greater significance on the suffering of those creatures which are genetically closer to us or whom we can more closely empathise. Obviously at the very highest end of this are members of our own species and social groups. And this descends rapidly through species that we have associated with closely throughout our evolutionary history (such as dogs) or are genetically similar to (such as apes) through other mammals with which we less closely relate etc etc.
Well to be fair throughout our evolutionary history this has not been the case (and for that matter is not the case for most animals which you see around - as mentioned dogs kill dogs etc). Other humans would have been one of our biggest competitors for food, shelter, space, breeding partners etc. So while we now have the luxury of living in societies where the need to kill another human is highly unusual we should appreciate that it is a relatively new state of affairs.*
I’m not saying that I necessarily disagree with you on the right to life for humans. But it certainly does seem to be something that needs some form of justification. Rather than simply the bald assertion that humans have a right to life. Do you have any supporting arguments to this or is it just a brute fact as far as you are concerned?
Would be interested to hear the logic in question if possible.*
But if you believe that God created our nature then surely that means he deliberately created creatures whose offspring would regularly die prior to birth.*
It is a source of opportunities for physical and intellectual development, creativity, adventure, exploration, appreciation of beauty, enjoyment, friendship, love and fulfilment.
With a previous post you have already acknowledged that from the beginning a fetus is human.
So with that said, let’s get rid of the fetus term for a bit. The argument is that the interest of one human outweighs the life of another human. Where does it end? Is that an absolute for all – so if my “interest” conflict with another human I have the discretion to take that life? We say interest, but barring any medical or criminal activities – an abortion is purely a convenience. A way to deflect responsibility for one’s own actions… So is one human’s convenience more important than the life of another? And again, where does it end? I would think that the preservation of life should always “trump” convenience of another.
Maybe exercising restraint and judgment would prevent this? If you can’t afford or don’t want a child – don’t put yourself in a place to have one. Seems like a logical answer to me. If I had to choose between abstinence and taking the life of another human – I would choose abstinence. If you take that chance not to abstain than you should be ready to accept the consequences – all of them – of your actions. As I said before – this is baring any criminal activity (ie. rape) – which would bring to bear a whole other ethical debate – but the logic and argument would be very similar.
Is the answer above intended to show that human life has immense value? If so it’s worth noting that most of that list applies to a number of other primates as well as humans. For that matter quite a bit of the list applies to quite a large proportion of the animal kingdom.
I’m open to being convinced. My reply to this was N/A because you’re question was prefaced with “If so…” since my answer to the first question was negative I assumed that meant question 2 was non-applicable.*
My position is not nebulous, it’s non-existent. That is to say that I don’t really have a “position” as such. I am open to being convinced either way.*I have given you an answer but your position is nebulous…
True enough, but that does not provide a justification. In the same way it does not justify racism if a white person (or person of whatever ethnicity for that matter) says “I prefer my own kind”.
Indeed they don’t, but I don’t see a way that our moral questing should in some way present humans with an inalienable right to life. Please let me know if I’m missing something here.
No it’s just something weird that my browser seems to do on interaction with this website, if I accidentally put two spaces next to each other the site interprets it as an asterisk. Please just ignore them.*
Current anthropologists and social scientists believe that there is no such thing as “race”, and that “race” is by and large a social construct. This would explain why the Irish were considered along the same lines as black people in America.
Asking why humans don’t have an inalienable right to life is like asking why “one plus one is equal to two”. It’s just a given that every human has the right to life. That is why if someone murdered you, they would be in the wrong. They have intruded on the very foremost right you have - your right to existence.
Ethno-racial preferences are also innate, and some forms of it are acceptable: if one is looking for someone to marry, or children to adopt, no-one would fault them for preferring their own racial or ethnic group.
The human right to life is the most basic; if you are not alive, no other right is meaningful. As a health-related agency once said, “If you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.” It makes no sense to worry about rights at all if there is no right to life at bottom. Dead bodies have no rights or need them.
Thank you for explaining that. God Bless and ICXC NIKA.
Interesting.*
So you are saying that as far as you are concerned it is a brute fact. You do not have anything to support this assertion, neither do you think any support for it is required?*
I’m kinda surprised about the position you have portrayed to be honest. You seem to believe that humans have an inalienable right to life and to believe that this is a brute fact and beyond question.*