My point about twins is that when you make a claim such as “life begins at conception” and base your morality on that, you are asking for trouble. Identical twins, in vitro, and so forth cause headaches. Also, as I mention elsewhere, you need to give fetuses social security numbers, tax breaks and so forth. Otherwise you are just lying. The catholic position is somewhat respectable, but Republicans? Disgraceful.
Your grasp of logic is not only tenuous but unhinged.
You don’t nullify a perfectly good principle by vaguely citing some exception as if that exception just cannot be refuted. Merely because you cannot grasp that what you call a “headache” when it doesn’t even rise to the level of head scratcher, does not cinch your position.
Why, precisely, would we need to issue social security numbers or give tax breaks to fetuses once it is accepted that life begins at conception?
That just makes no sense.
We do not add children to voter rolls merely because we acknowledge the right to life of children.
Why wouldn’t we have to, if your argument works?
The answer is: your argument is full of holes.
There is nothing that prevents someone from claiming that individual human beings have a right to life, all the while acknowledging that certain other rights, privileges or responsibilities do not necessarily accrue as a function of a basic right to life.
An individual fetus or child may not yet have the capacity to fulfill the moral requirements (i.e., responsibilities) that attend certain rights. You may, as an adult, have a right to form a private judgement or to liberty of conscience, but that right is determined by your capacity to do carry out the practice of that right, precisely because a right implies that all others have a responsibility to permit you to exercise that right. A right to enter into a contract with another is predicated on your capacity to fulfill that contract. That a person could not fulfill the terms of a contract would remove the right of the person to enter into contracts to begin with. Thus, only those deemed to be
competent adults are permitted to legally contract with others.
Some rights are legal rights (bestowed by the state) and some are inalienable and cannot be taken away by the state.
Conscience rights or the right to form judgements are natural or inalienable, but these only come into effect when the person is capable of an appropriate level of moral and intellectual development. This is why parents act on behalf of the children and make decisions for them in matters that those children are not competent to take on themselves.
The right to life of any one human being is an inalienable right that must be respected by all others. The only competency required is that one is alive as a human being.
You cannot argue that one person has a right to take the life of another merely because they are an undue burden. If that were the case then any parent would have a right to kill any of their children once those children became an undo burden. Do you really want to go there?
