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On the subject of abortion

RobertByers

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Can someone please help me out by defining what these "rights" are supposed to be that get bandied about all the time? I understand what a legal right is, but I think that it's not being used in that sense.

The rights are from the old ideas that man has from God guarenteed law that he can not be murdered or this or that.
The rights of man are from God or nature and are above any human gov't or any human beings will to oppose them.
These rights are noted by nations and then fleshed out.
They must be obeyed.
 
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RobertByers

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If you would refer to my previous posts, you'll see why legally, it doesn't matter whether one considers the fetus "human" or not. It's irrelevent.

I looked and the line of reasoning is bad.

Your misunderstanding that peoples rights to life are not from the bov't but from God. The gov't just recognizes this fact and agrees that all people have a right to life.
This right trumps the special case where one person lives in another.
To deny the foetus life because the mother wants her blood for herself is to deny the rights of life of all mankind.
Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.

The claim for abortion is on the point that the foetus is not a kid. Not that the unborn kid has no right to life
 
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cantata

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The rights are from the old ideas that man has from God guarenteed law that he can not be murdered or this or that.

"Cannot" be murdered? But he gets murdered all the time. What does it mean to say that God has made a guaranteed law that he can't?

The rights of man are from God or nature and are above any human gov't or any human beings will to oppose them.

How do you know what they are?

Does the Bible use a word meaning "rights" in this sense? It seems to me that direct moral injunctions in Scripture are always framed in terms of the agent. It says that you mustn't kill people; it doesn't say that people have a right not to be killed. (And thank goodness, because otherwise God would be violating rights left, right, and centre in the Old Testament.)

These rights are noted by nations and then fleshed out.

How do the nations know what they are?

They must be obeyed.

How do you obey a right?
 
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TooCurious

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How do you keep that reasoning from working both ways? Your right to swing your fist ends where my uterus begins.

If one doesn't acknowledge each individual's right to bodily sovereignty, or holds that another person's right to life trumps an individual's right to choose what happens to his own body, that justifies things like mandatory blood, marrow, and tissue donations, or even the forced "donation" of redundant organs (you don't need two kidneys). Where is the line drawn? When does a person get to say, "No, it's my body, and I don't consent to this"?
 
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karisma

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A fetus cannot have more rights than a born person. And as no born person has any rights to another's blood or organs- even to save their life- a fetus cannot either, without the woman's consent.

Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.

Dead on! A fetus's right to life ends once it intrudes on the woman's body.

The claim for abortion is on the point that the foetus is not a kid.

That's not my claim. As you can see, that point is irrelevent.

Not that the unborn kid has no right to life

It does have a right to life. It just cannot use that right to violate the rights of another, when that other person doesn't want it there. No born person can use their right to life to demand blood or organs from another person to save their life, as it infringes on the right's of another person to their own body. And this is why we see many people on organ waitlists dying every year. For want of a kidney. Or bone marrrow. We cannot force people to donate against their will as it's a violation of their rights, even though it could save another's life.
 
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RobertByers

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Gods laws are the source of our rights. As the American constitution, I think, says they are SELF-EVIDENT.
The rights of man are based on the rights fromGod. Now called nature. The gov'ts of men note the rights of man and enforce them. The great ideas are the ones most evident.
Simple
 
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cantata

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What is evident about them?

I can barely understand what a right is supposed to be, let alone claim that it is self-evident. Apart from anything else, you say they are written in the American constitution. If they're self-evident, why do they need to be written down at all?

What evidence do you have from the world or from your own reflection that there exist human rights above and beyond legal rights? How are these rights manifested in nature? Are they written in the stars?

Has God ever said that such-and-such is a right? I can't find anything to that effect in the Bible.
 
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RobertByers

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Your right. My right to swing my fist ends at your body. Thats what i said.
Right. Everyone has bodily sovereignty (as you put it). The child in the womb included.

Your body assets thing is not accurate. In that case you are not killing the person but simply withholding things from it. It is not the motive tokill and what kills is a natural problem. You are not the source of the death decision. The disease is.

Yes a persons right to life trumps your right to control your body. Its a case where one body is within another. Strange but true.
its like your saying ITS my body and i can throw it against someone on a bridge if I want to.
The reality is that a human being is living within the mother. To kill that child , save for serious self defence, is the murder of a human being. im not saying, and don't, that pro-choicers believe its a child. Non belief means non consent to murder. Just a form of manslaughter.

The right to life is inaleinable. The right to control ones body isn't and is secondary to such a foundational concept of our right to life.
 
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RobertByers

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Your wrong. The right to life is inaleinable. One can not be killed for the minor desires of another.
As elsewhere I said the body parts idea is not the same. In denying ones parts one is not killing the patient. It is the disease that is. In abortion it is a intent to kill the being by denying parts.
I don't owe someone my parts but I'm not bringing their death. Not my plan. In abortion it is a direct plan to kill the being. Therefore a direct plan to deny their right to life.
The right to life of a human trumps any other right due to its importance. One can't lose such a thing for some abstract concept.
We are talking about a human being. very important thing
 
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karisma

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Your wrong. The right to life is inaleinable.

But that right cannot be used to violate the rights of others. That's why we cannot make organ/tissue donation mandatory, even to save another person's life. Their right to life ends once it intrudes on your right to your own body.

One can not be killed for the minor desires of another.

Pregnancy is NOT minor. Have you ever been pregnant? No? Didn't think so. So I guess you can't really make the claim it's no big deal.

As elsewhere I said the body parts idea is not the same. In denying ones parts one is not killing the patient. It is the disease that is. In abortion it is a intent to kill the being by denying parts.

There is no difference according to what you just wrote. Whether someone dies because they are lacking healthy body parts from a donor or whether someone dies because they are lacking a uterus is no different.

I don't owe someone my parts but I'm not bringing their death. Not my plan.

The end result is the same. If you truly cared about saving lives this should be equally upsetting.

In abortion it is a direct plan to kill the being.

No, the direct plan is removal from the woman's body. Women don't have abortions because they actively like to kill fetuses, they just want their bodies back.

Therefore a direct plan to deny their right to life.
The right to life of a human trumps any other right due to its importance. One can't lose such a thing for some abstract concept.
We are talking about a human being. very important thing

Than according to your logic that the right to life always trumps the right to your own body, you have to be consistent. This will not only apply to women. Be prepared to force people to donate kidneys to others who need them-after all, you only need one! People must donate blood on a regular basis. They must give blood marrow. Your other organs will be harvested upon your death as they can save someone else's life. I'm sure you will find some people disagreeing with this idea.

Face it, my logic is irrefutable. I can't even claim it as mine as I got it off a Harvard law site, I know I cited it somewhere.

"A fetus cannot have more rights than a born person, and as no born person has any rights to another's blood or organs- even to save their life- a fetus cannot either, without the woman's consent."
 
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TooCurious

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Your right. My right to swing my fist ends at your body. Thats what i said.
Right. Everyone has bodily sovereignty (as you put it). The child in the womb included.

Right; meaning I can't live inside its body without its permission.

RobertByers said:
Your body assets thing is not accurate. In that case you are not killing the person but simply withholding things from it. It is not the motive tokill and what kills is a natural problem. You are not the source of the death decision. The disease is.

And in the case of abortion, the source of the death is an absence of a sustaining environment and nutrients. Remember, the goal of abortion is not to kill the zygote/fetus, but to remove it from the woman who doesn't want it there. The death, however inevitable, is incidental to that process.

RobertByers said:
Yes a persons right to life trumps your right to control your body.

You can't have my kidney.

RobertByers said:
Its a case where one body is within another. Strange but true.

Why is it permissible for one person to live inside another person without her consent? You can't even live inside my HOUSE without my consent, and that's a lot less personal and doesn't effect nearly the same level of physiological change on me. It doesn't matter if you'll die of exposure if you stay outside; you need my permission to be in my house.

RobertByers said:
its like your saying ITS my body and i can throw it against someone on a bridge if I want to.

That's not what I'm saying at all; that's a strawman. If I am on a bridge, I am not affecting you or your body in any measurable way. I am not taking your body's resources without your permission. The situation you present is not in any way analogous.


Clearly we disagree on this point, and you have not presented a persuasive argument in favor of it.

RobertByers said:
The right to life is inaleinable. The right to control ones body isn't and is secondary to such a foundational concept of our right to life.

Please explain to me how the right to control one's own body is "secondary" and "not inalienable." To me, the right to bodily sovereignty is as fundamental as the right to life. Bodily sovereignty is a fundamental component of liberty, which, as I understood it, is also supposed to be an "inalienable right."

Your wrong. The right to life is inaleinable. One can not be killed for the minor desires of another.

"Minor desires"? Time out. No. Fail. Wanting to control one's own body, not wanting to be pregnant, is NOT a "minor desire." You are wrong.

RobertByers said:
As elsewhere I said the body parts idea is not the same. In denying ones parts one is not killing the patient. It is the disease that is. In abortion it is a intent to kill the being by denying parts.

Nope; the intent is to remove the zygote/fetus from the woman. Its death is a side effect of this process. If you develop a process by which the zygote/fetus can be removed from a woman without killing it, then perhaps you will have a point.

RobertByers said:
I don't owe someone my parts but I'm not bringing their death. Not my plan. In abortion it is a direct plan to kill the being. Therefore a direct plan to deny their right to life.

See above.

RobertByers said:
The right to life of a human trumps any other right due to its importance. One can't lose such a thing for some abstract concept.

My uterus is not an abstract concept. My body is not an abstract concept. You persist in trivializing the experience of the woman in this scenario, and part of me can't help but think that it's because the scenario is one that will never affect you directly. Please imagine, just for a moment, that you have an organism living inside of you, without your permission, that will remain there for most of a year, severely impacting your life and causing permanent physiological changes in your body, and that expelling it at the end of that almost-year will involve a major medical procedure including a hospital stay and the single most painful experience of your life.

Now tell me that your desire to avoid this ordeal is a "minor desire" regarding an "abstract concept."

RobertByers said:
We are talking about a human being. very important thing

No. We are talking about TWO human beings; a very important distinction. The woman has rights as well, and her inalienable right to liberty includes the necessity for bodily sovereignty. The fetus may not remain within her without her consent.
 
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Khameo

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You persist in trivializing the experience of the woman in this scenario, and part of me can't help but think that it's because the scenario is one that will never affect you directly.

This is absolutely true, and I gave you reps for saying this, as too many people forget it or take it for granted. I happen to find that the same is true of other issues, as well (like the ones regarding homosexuality, for example).
 
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WatersMoon110

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The right to life of a human trumps any other right due to its importance.
No. It doesn't.

The right to life is a right of non-interference. You have the right to keep living, and I don't have the right to interfere with that, unless you start interfering with my rights. But that doesn't give you the right to, say, steal my food to keep living, or to force me to donate a kidney to keep you living.

Also, if someone were to attack me, their right to life wouldn't prevent me from having the right to defend myself, even if I needed to kill them to do this. Thus the right to life doesn't trump all other rights. Once someone starts interfering with my rights, their rights can be violated to stop this interference, if necessary.

The real question, I feel, would be "is abortion necessary?"

I can easily answer this (since I asked it *wink*), by saying that all humans have the right to bodily integrity (which includes the right to deny use of their body to other humans and organisms), and there is no other way to immediately end the use of a woman's body by an unborn human until medical viability, other than abortion.

Thus, I feel that abortion must necessarily be kept legal, until medical viability, or some other option that allows the unborn human to be removed but doesn't result in its death.
 
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Khameo

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Noone can ever come up with a way of enforcing the illegality of abortions, how to force a woman through an unwanted pregnancy, or what the punishment will be.
The punishment would be the death penalty.

For the sake of irony.
 
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RobertByers

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The wrong people are getting into Harvard but I knew that already.

You again try to say that a human being does not have a inalienable right to life. We do.
Killing ahuman just because they arrived in ones body is not by any standard of God or man reason to murder the child. (in this case you are accepting its a child). To deny a organ/blood is not to kill a human being. It is the sickness that kills the human being. In abortion it is the motive and direct action to kill.
The right to life that we all have and agree all must have trumps any but the most serious need for self defence. We are talking about a people.
Abortion is from people who don't believe it kills a human.
If you can so easily overturn the right to life of people on some secondary matter then all humanity is in danger of quick termination for minor reasons.
You are devalueing the right to life of mankind. This will not work
 
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RobertByers

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It is the motive to kill the creature within the womb. Also this is the result.
You can't just invent rights to counter the great inaleinable right to life. This right is the essence of prohibition against murder. it preserves the great legitamacy of ouirselves to our existence. You must submitt to it.
Pro-abortion folk deny it kills a human being. Otherwise most, or all, would be pro-life.

You must persuade that its not a kid or that killing kids is fine.
Again the kids right to life trumps any secondary , therefore, minor claim for non pregnancy. Anyways any other rights the kid has too and cancels each other out.

You have no case for justifiable homicide here. Its like your saying you could drown your two year old so as to have another bedroom.
Nope.
 
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RobertByers

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The inalienable right to life is unconditional on interference or anything else.
You must submit to this right from God and man.
You can't murder someone for stealing food.
Denying a organ is not killing someone but instead the disease is. if you denied them a organ and then shot them then its the same thin as abortion.
Its about motive and results.
Aborton is a motivee to bring a result of death.

The only reason one has a claim , not right, to bodily integrity is because it follows a greater actual right to life.
The child being aborted also has any bodiliy itegrity claims but first the right to life to make these claims relevant.
You can't twist concepts here.
You must be accurate and say the inalienable right to life is made null and void for another reason.
War, self defence, punishment.
Not some trivial thing. A human life is a great thing in value and legitamact to xcontinue existence. If this is your stance then your got nothing.
To erase a persons existence from earth one needs a GOOD reason.
 
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