Can the Pro-Choicer be Rational?

[sfs]

The science on when a new human being comes into existence is fairly settled at this point.

Science says nothing at all about this subject, for the simple reason that "new human being" is not a scientific concept -- it has no scientific definition.

 

[sfs]

I'll add that I have no problem with somebody deciding that all abortion is wrong based on what is pretty much a gut feeling. That's how we have to make a lot of moral judgments. But this thread, as I understand it, is about rational arguments for or against abortion.

 

[Silmarien]

I had to laugh at this naive post for humans almost ALWAYS treat other humans as a means to an end! A friend asked me yesterday to accompany him to a meeting tonight because he wanted company. My wife asked me the day before "to help" her pull her cell phone charger out of the wall because she wanted to stow it. My boss asked me to provide a quote to a customer because that is how we get more business and profits.

I'm sorry if you find the Categorical Imperative, one of the hallmarks of modern deontology, to be laughably naive. Unsurprisingly, it actually applies quite well to your situations. Or at least to versions of these situations wherein someone actually is being used as a means to an end.

If your friendships are based primarily on the need to have someone--anyone--accompany you, rather than based on the genuine desire to be with that person, then yes, that is immoral. You are using someone as a means to an end, rather than as an end in and of themselves.

I'm not sure how asking someone to help you replace a battery could be considered using them as a means to an end. If you treat people as if they exist merely to help you, however, that would also be quite immoral.

As for providing quotes to customers, I have difficulty seeing how that qualifies as using someone as a means to an end unless you are in some sort of abusive work situation and are being taken advantage of in some way by your boss. That would also certainly be immoral.

So yes, a proper understanding of what is meant by the Categorical Imperative does lead to the results one would expect. I agree with you that people almost always use each other as a means to an end, though--I'd ditch Kant for St. Augustine if I really wanted to get into that problem.

• Roe v Wade discovered a pregnant woman has the right to privacy, which implies the right to kill so long as no one in government knows about it.

I haven't read Roe since law school, so I am somewhat fuzzy on the reasoning, but the primary concern was the right to privacy in healthcare decisions, not the right to kill whomever you want as long as it happens in the privacy of your house.

Furthermore, the fact that SCOTUS hands down a ruling does not make that ruling some sort of moral discovery. There have been some notorious rulings, like Dred Scott, and there are a number of currently controversial ones, such as Roe and Citizens United.

The reason the baby does not have a right to its own life is that rights pertain to actual moral agents. Recent studies suggest the human brain is not fully formed until 25 years of age. Certainly an unborn is not only NOT a rational choice maker, it is no kind of choice maker. Sure, I concede the human baby has the potential to one day be a moral agent. However, potential is not actual.

I am terribly confused. Are you suggesting that the right to life does not pertain to anyone under 25 years of age?

 

[hedrick]

I haven't read Roe since law school, so I am somewhat fuzzy on the reasoning, but the primary concern was the right to privacy in healthcare decisions, not the right to kill whomever you want as long as it happens in the privacy of your house.

My reading is that they used privacy is a somewhat specific sense: the right not to have the government forbid something unless there's a good reason for it. This isn't what people typically mean by privacy today.

It's based on a concept that I'm not sure the current Supreme Court believes: that the bill of rights doesn't enumerate every right, but is just an example of things the government should not do.

I'm sure you're aware that adding a bill of rights was controversial because people were afraid it would be understood as the only rights we have. That's specifically what today's originalists are doing.

 

[Silmarien]

My reading is that they used privacy is a somewhat specific sense: the right not to have the government forbid something unless there's a good reason for it. This isn't what people typically mean by privacy today.

I think it goes deeper than that, since Roe does state that the government can have a legitimate interest in the fetus's potential life. So obviously they recognized a good reason for it. The question here is specifically how to balance individual's right to privacy against the state's interests, though I don't remember the exact calculus.

I had thought that issue revolved around the right to privacy in healthcare, but a quick glance at a case summary states that it was an expansion of the marital privacy protected in Griswold (i.e., the case legalizing contraception). Maybe healthcare was mentioned there instead... it definitely shows up somewhere in these privacy cases.

I really do need to brush up on my con law at some point. All I remember for certain is that the Supreme Court intentionally avoided strong protections, favoring the vaguer notion of privacy, specifically to get Kennedy on board, and that pro-choice activists have never been thrilled about that, given how vulnerable the resulting protections are.

It's based on a concept that I'm not sure the current Supreme Court believes: that the bill of rights doesn't enumerate every right, but is just an example of things the government should not do.

I'm sure you're aware that adding a bill of rights was controversial because people were afraid it would be understood as the only rights we have. That's specifically what today's originalists are doing.

I would agree, though I'm honestly somewhat skeptical of the possibility of really being an originalist at all. Scalia came closest, but conservative justices have certainly been known to creatively interpret the Bill of Rights in favor of certain interests as well.

 

[hedrick]

I think it goes deeper than that, since Roe does state that the government can have a legitimate interest in the fetus's potential life. So obviously they recognized a good reason for it. The question here is specifically how to balance individual's right to privacy against the state's interests, though I don't remember the exact calculus.

I'm working by memory, but my memory is that they thought the legitimate purpose of regulation was to control potentially-dangerous medical procedures. They observed that because abortion is less dangerous than finishing the pregnancy up to the end of the first trimester, no regulation should be done then.

You're right, however, that there was a balancing act, as always.

 

[hedrick]

I would agree, though I'm honestly somewhat skeptical of the possibility of really being an originalist at all. Scalia came closest, but conservative justices have certainly been known to creatively interpret the Bill of Rights in favor of certain interests as well.

Since the original intent was not to restrict rights to listed ones, I think originalism is self-contradictory.

 

[Silmarien]

I'm working by memory, but my memory is that they thought the legitimate purpose of regulation was to control potentially-dangerous medical procedures. They observed that because abortion is less dangerous than finishing the pregnancy up to the end of the first trimester, no regulation should be done then.

You're right, however, that there was a balancing act, as always.

Not exclusively. Viability is also cordoned off as the point at which the state can have a legitimate interest in protecting the fetus.

Of course, it's been common for states to chop away at protections as much as possible with creative interpretations of what it means to have an interest in the woman's health, so that's the bit that comes up more often.

Since the original intent was not to restrict rights to listed ones, I think originalism is self-contradictory.

Hmm. I'm not sure. The Supreme Court was not originally envisioned as having the power that it does--judicial review as a concept comes out of Marbury v. Madison, so if an originalist thinks that it ought to be the business of Congress rather than the Supreme Court to enumerate additional rights, that might be a valid understanding.

On the other hand, given the ways in which the Fourteenth Amendment revolutionized the Constitution, you could probably argue that originalism is basically impossible.

 

[Wrangler]

I would have probably said that rights apply to human lives, rather than specifying moral agents

Are you implying that people aren't fully moral agents until age 25? Are there degrees of moral agency?

You wrote a very long post, which I appreciate and will respond in small doses.

Yes, I am saying that humans are not fully moral agents until they are adults, aka "the age of majority." History, this was 18 years old.

There are certainly degrees of moral agency. I would rely on my 3 year old's preference for which fruit he prefers to eat or what blanket or teddy bear to sleep with.

Rights are a moral principle pertain to a person's freedom to choose in a social context. So, moral agency, the capacity to makes choices, is a prerequisite. Another poster already pointed out how an adult in a coma or deemed braindead obviously cannot make health care decisions. Someone, a health care advocate takes on the right to make decisions on their behalf.

 

[Wrangler]

I'm not sure this is justification for being able to kill the life though. We could easily think of other situations where a person isn't a rational choice maker, for whatever reason. I could think of several mental conditions where a person wouldn't be a rational choice maker, yet I think you would be hard pressed to say it was therefore morally permissible to kill them.

That's a could point - from a precedence perspective. My post was addressing the issue from a philosophical perspective.

IAdditionally, I'm not so sure that at some point an unborn baby doesn't become a rational choice maker while in the womb.

IThe unborn in this case certainly behaves in such a way that suggests that it thinks it has a right to life. And though it may be minimal in rational choices, it does seem to be able to make at least one key rational decision regarding it's own life - avoid the needle.

Thinking is not the criteria. I am unaware of any behavior of a baby that suggests it makes any choices, that it is any more than a response creature.

 

[Wrangler]

I find it pretty unpersuasive and quite a stretch that biological reproduction is akin to slavery.

Well think again!

Just because the length of slavery is 9 months and driven by biology rather than economics or race does not change the fact that a women required to do this would be a slave.

All things that exist are limited. All rights are limited. In some cases, limited by nature. In this and most cases, limited by THE EQUAL RIGHTS OF OTHERS.

By the way, this is the same argument against free health care. "Free" means the doctor becomes a slave to the patient.

 

[Wrangler]

I think you may be able to argue that in such cases as rape and the life of the mother that it's more akin to slavery

No, not at all.

A victim of rape was violated by the rapist. You seem OK with her being violated by the impreganted seed.

The fact that a women became pregnant consensually is irrelevant to the choice of what to do with her body AFTER getting pregnant.

One more point, IF rape were the only means a pregnant woman would have an abortion, it would create a moral hazard. Suddenly, rape accusations would increase despite evidence that sex was consensual.

 

[Wrangler]

Do you think it could be successfully argued that since the normal reproduction process is slavery, and that since slavery is immoral, then reproduction ought to be prohibited?

I never said anything like the normal reproduction process is slavery. I said a woman being required to carry the baby to term would make the mother a slave to the unborn IF it were against her will.

 

[Wrangler]

I doubt the right to privacy implies the right to kill so long as the government doesn't know about it.

As it pertain to abortion, the right to privacy absolutely means the freedom to kill.

Funny how you previously mentioned precedent but are unaware of THE Roe v Wade precedent.

 

[Wrangler]

And just a little semantics here, but I'm not sure that the Supreme Court discovers anything so much as offers an opinion. In fact, they called it an opinion, not a discovery.

That the courts discovered this right is a term used to highlight the fact that there was no basis in law. Clearly, the courts have usurped power. They are not supposed to offer opinions of societal evolution. The courts are only supposed to apply the law - passed by the legislature - to a particular case. In this case, the courts usurped the power of Congress to make all law by pretending or "discovering" a right not codified in statue.

BTW, the court usurping this power was repeated with "gay marriage." The Dred Scott case was properly decided upon the matters of the law. In other countries, slavery, abortion and gay marriage were settled by legislative action - as it should be. I have no doubt that in 1973, there is NO WAY the Congress would have passed a law allowing pregnant woman to kill their unborn babies.

Radicals about slavery and abortion and gay marriage, cannot abide by our Constitutional system. Getting activist judges to usurp this power from the legislature is the easiest way to thwart the will of the people. Deserving another thread, the War of Northern Aggression was not over slavery. Secession was over slavery. The war was to stop the people of the South to exercise their rights as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and 10A. This is why President Jefferson Davis was never charged with treason. Had the USA lost the case, one might wonder what the war was about.

 

[Wrangler]

Is a protector a slave? I'm not sure how one goes from enslaved to protector.

It hinges on choice. I am a protector when I choose to be. I am a slave when I am forced to, say join the military under penalty of death.

 

[Wrangler]

I don't think a persons rights are dependent on what the government knows or doesn't know, and I'm not sure that just because a government can't protect everyone's rights all the time that it shouldn't recognize those rights all the same and protect them in some sensible, albeit imperfect, manner. If the government is to have any purpose, then among it's chief purposes is to ensure the rights of the people.

You really do not see the contradiction in what you wrote? How does a government ensure the rights of the people when they don't know the person even exists, let alone his rights are being violated?

BTW, the idea that a woman is forced to be an incubating slave for 9 months its part of government's way of ensuring rights is another contraction. You are denying the right not to be an incubating slave for 9 months.

 

[Wrangler]

Are you suggesting here that if the government does come to know about rights violations that it is ok to do something about it? So if indeed the unborn had their natural rights violated in an abortion, and the government knows about it, then it is permissible for the government to act? For example, the government knows of Planned Parenthood clinics. So if a rights violation is occurring, would the government be justified in shutting down the clinics and penalizing doctors?

Interesting question. Here is another example of you oscillating between precedent an philosophy.

The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that unborn have no rights. I agree with that determination.

As I implied in my previous post, I disagree the matter should have been settled judicially. It is a question that is properly settled legislatively. I do not agree with judicial tyranny, in usurping the rights of the people to express their will through their representatives.

 

[Silmarien]

Rights are a moral principle pertain to a person's freedom to choose in a social context. So, moral agency, the capacity to makes choices, is a prerequisite. Another poster already pointed out how an adult in a coma or deemed braindead obviously cannot make health care decisions. Someone, a health care advocate takes on the right to make decisions on their behalf.

Your analysis here makes absolutely no sense. People who are comatose do not lose their rights. If you have a living will, the government is not going to declare it invalid because you suddenly do not have the right to make decisions. They will not say that you suddenly have no right to life and harvest your organs for medical purposes. Yes, there are situations in which we do not have the legal authority to make our own decisions--the underage, for example--but this does not mean that all of our rights are forfeit and the state can kill us at will.

Really, the embryo is the only stage of human life at which basic human rights currently do not apply--I am thinking of embryonic stem-cell research right now as well. You cannot compare this to the case of the coma patient or even the corpse, since even organ donation requires previous authorization. Similarly, an infant is no more a moral actor than an embryo is, but is generally thought to be fully protected by human rights. Moral agency is clearly not the correct framework here.

Better to ask what is required for personhood, I think. A zygote being able to become multiple people is a pretty serious problem for the position that personhood begins at conception, as far as I'm concerned.

By the way, this is the same argument against free health care. "Free" means the doctor becomes a slave to the patient.

This is not how universal health care works, lol. Such systems are government funded, but that doesn't mean that doctors are volunteers, much less slaves. You cannot drag your doctor out of their house at 2am and force them to treat you.

 

[Wrangler]

Your analysis here makes absolutely no sense. People who are comatose do not lose their rights.

People who are comatose cannot exercise their rights. This means they have no rights in practice.