Jerry said:
A miscarriage is not a conscious choice. It is mindless biology and therefore can not be compared to an elective abortion.
FutureIncoming said:
Are you trying to imply that mindless biology must be granted superior status over Free Will? Mindless biology is a mosquito seeking warm flesh, to suck blood. Mindless biology is a blastocyst seeking a womb, to suck blood. Are you trying to say that it is OK to swat the first but not the second? If so, would you care to explain that in detail?
Jerry said:
I made my point, you’re just trying to avoid it and change the subject as usual.
I did not avoid your point at all. I exposed its flaw, the implied notion that mindless biology deserves to have power over Free Will. That is, to accept a miscarriage, because it is initiated by mindless biology, but to denounce abortion, because it is initiated by Free will, is indeed the equivalent of saying that Free Will should not be allowed to do things that mere mindless biology can do, that "mindless biology must be granted superior status over Free Will".
And your feeble attempt to deny my response, instead of answering it, is just that: feeble.
Jerry said:
after conception DNA shows that the organism in question already exists, therefore the right to life applies
FutureIncoming said:
No, because "right to life" doesn't exist; how can something that doesn't exist be applicable?
Now, what does exist is a legal fiction that we find useful for helping people to get along with each other. It is called "right to life", but out-of-context this is no more true than calling the sky blue (the sky is pink on Mars, a different context).
Jerry said:
Your argument is a
Negative Conclusion from Affirmative Premisses. The right to life exists.
FALSE. My argument is a denial that your so-called "affirmative premisses" have truth to them. Only if they are true can any conclusions based on them also be true --and only if they are true can there be a "negative-conclusion fallacy". So, let's examine your list of affirmative premisses:
Declaration of Independence said:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
This is a collection of unsupported claims. It tries to weasel words by claiming that what it says is "self-evident", and logically therefore doesn't need any other support -- but the mere claim of self-evidence does not mean that such self-evidence actually exists. For example, consider the claim that "all men are created equal" -- is that self-evident?
Apparently not, according to this:
Fact Sheet: Understanding Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome
There is a category of humans having pure XY male chromosomes, and yet they can resemble women so completely that they might not even be identified as men until genetic tests are done (often after the question is raised, "Why can't I get pregnant?").
Alternatively, if you choose to equate "men" with "human people", then ask yourself this: Why weren't women (
and those AIS-suffering men) granted the right to vote when the Constitution was enacted? So, "self-evident that all men are created equal?" What a laugh! What a
lie!
The preceding was somewhat off topic, since the real topic is "right to life". Well,
regarding "unalienable rights" --that site has a good definition:
UNALIENABLE. The state of a thing or right which cannot be sold.
Which doesn't make sense at first. If human lives have been sold back and forth for millenia, as slaves, how can it be said that there is such a thing as an "unalienable" right to life? People have even sold themselves into a kind of slavery known as "indenturing". Well, I understand that even after being made a slave, a person still has personal life intact; it might be said that slavery really involves selling the human-animal body for equivalent-of-draft-animal purposes, regardless of what choices the person inside that human-animal body might wish to make. And one of those purposes can involve, say, testing-to-destruction of some new weapon or other. Where is "right to life" if life ends? Not to mention that, a "right to life" is often interpred as a "right to continue living", in spite the self-evident truth that death happens. So, the claim thus appears to be another outright lie, and is not at all a "self-evident truth".
U.S. Constitution said:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
The problem with this is that it is a Law specifying that certain other laws may not be made.
In no way can this prevent death from happening by some means outside the law. And this is exactly why I say that "right to life" is a legal fiction. It can only have some degree validity if the fiction (note: "fiction" = "lie") is embraced/accepted everywhere. But since neither Natural Events nor murderers embrace this fiction, what is the basis for claiming that the fiction is valid? There isn't any such basis! All that can be truly said about it is: "Right-to-life is part of Law; it exists only in the sense that some Law about it exists and is embraced/accepted --obeyed, that is."
It does not exist in some universal way outside the obeyed Law. That law in fact only applies to the USA, not even always obeyed there, and so the "right", outside the USA, may exist only where other places have a similar obeyed law.
Supreme Court said:
If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.
The Supreme Court, of course, must accept the legal fiction; it is duty-bound to work within the Law. But this does not prevent others from working outside the Law, and so "right to life" remains a legal fiction, as explained above. Your "affirmative premisses" have failed to deliver what you thought they could.
Jerry said:
Please quote the SCOTUS case law which difines "a person-class mind".
I doubt there is such a case. Not that that matters so much, because I prefer Scientific definitions over Legal definitions; the former is Objective while the latter tends to be arbitrary,
except when the Legal has no choice but to accept the Scientific. For example, the legal definition of "person" is prejudiced and faulty, if it cannot encompass non-human persons. If I have a long-term goal with respect to the abortion debate, it is to ultimately get the Law to work with Science to settle upon an Objective definition of "person". That's why I care nothing about the existing legal definition. What sort of definition of "person" do
you think would be created, if the Law had to accommodate persons of all possible kinds, while needing to reject animals of all possible kinds? Do you know of any way that unborn humans could be included as "persons"? I don't!
Jerry said:
{{A ZEF's}} consent, even if possible, is irrelevant, as there is no "right to die" for it to exorcize.
FutureIncoming said:
you now seem to be confusing "right" with "ability". If a suicide succeeds, how can it be said that there was no right to die involved? To me it seems that there could be no right to die only if all of us were immortal and unkillable.
Jerry said:
Hm, I can play the avoid-proving-my-point game also: If a murder succeeds, how can it be said that there was no right to Murder involved? If an invasion of privacy succeeds, how can it be said that there was no right to invade privacy involved? If a sex-slave ring succeeds, how can it be said that there was no right to enslave women for sex involved? Here you are
Asserting the Consequent by assuming yet another false premise.
Once again I was not avoiding your point, which is a point of Law, and not a point of Reality.
My point is to point that distinction out. I'm willing to try again. Consider these two things as possible "rights":
1. A right to eat bugs (many bugs are 50% protein, and humans are omnivores).
2. A right to eat marijuana.
If there is a Law granting a right to eat bugs, you can certainly say that there is a right to eat bugs -- but what if such a law simply doesn't exist? What are people exercising, who eat bugs in the absence of a law that allows it? The other side of this coin involves eating marijuana (it is my understanding that it can be an ingredient of some recipes), while there exist laws prohibiting various interactions with the stuff, probably including eating it. You can certainly say that there is no right to eat marijuana, if a law prohibits it, but then what are those people exercising, who eat it anyway? I submit that they are exercising "Reality" rights. Reality gives you the "right to try", as I've written elsewhere on several other occasions. Reality cares nothing about human laws. Anything that you are able to succeed at doing, you have
that kind of right (and only that kind of right) to do it. Yes, I'm fully aware that this includes murduring and raping and enslaving and so on, and that's why people invented morals and ethics and laws, to help themselves turn a free-for-all into a chance of surviving the long term. And so I among many generally embrace/accept/obey those rules, because I recognize the benefits of doing that. I could
hope that all others also do that, at least to the extent that I do,
but I know better. And as a result, I know that various things that are called "rights" are not any such thing in Reality, and I know that various things not called "rights" are nevertheless, at the very least, actionable possibilities in Reality. "Asserting the consequent?" NOT. Accepting Reality, YES. Because, you may recall, the "right to try" is fully decoupled from any such notion as a "right to succeed" --THAT is something that does not exist at all in Reality, and often also does not exist in Law, either.
