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The Moral Case For Abortion

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
Saturn's nod
10:22 / 28.02.06
Our Lady: a moral case to justify abortion, beyond the wellbeing and wishes of the mother?

I have a tentative argument for the morality of abortion, which comes from my reading of Candace Pert’s (Amazon U.S., Amazon U.K., interview) ideas about what consciousness consists of. It’s not even slightly watertight, and I'm sure you all will point out several features I've not thought of. The benefit of this view to me is that it brings the activity of gestating a fetus into the foreground. I see this view as analogous to the way we know the seed of a plant will be loaded with mRNAs (chemical messages directing development, kindof) suitable to the climatic conditions the mother plant has experienced.

If as Pert suggests consciousness is mediated throughout the body by neuropeptides, then the mother’s consciouness has a direct effect on the developing fetus because such substances cross the placenta in exactly the same way they cross the blood-brain barrier. (And vice versa – clearly genes expressed in the 'parasitic' fetus have effects on the mother's physiology, but that’s another discussion specifically excluded in the initial post of the thread.) As I see it, the cognitive tone of the in-utero time might have a huge effect on the fetus. It's my view that the emotional atmosphere of those crucial weeks could shape the physiology of the developing organism at a deep level.

If the emotional atmosphere in which the fetus is developing consists of revulsion, terror, hatred, anxiety, fear and so on, I think it is reasonable to suggest that the developing nervous system of the fetus is founded on and primed with those states.[0]

So why is it a bad thing to gestate a fetus in hatred, terror and revulsion? Without a study correlating “negative emotions” (not the best term, but does it suffice?) with horrible life outcomes it's hard to justify but I point to my aspirations towards an 'ideal society', where every child born is wanted and loved. I believe that individuals who are wanted and loved are more likely to behave in a friendly and co-operative way and perhaps more able to share resources equitably in a human and more-than-human society. I'm aware this is a kind of continuum view which doesn’t sharply distinguish between care for the infant in utero and care for it in-arms as a infant.

From this viewpoint I see the current situation where abortion is available primarily in the first trimester as appropriate, although I would propose to expand access in the UK so it was genuinely on that basis of choice rather than the current situation in which I believe it is available only in case of a threat to the mother’s mental or physical well-being. However as a moral position I can see at least one immediate defect - it could be used to argue a lower value for children born into difficult circumstances, hence reinforcing oppression. (Although conversely, it could emphasize higher value for children born into difficult circumstances who overcome those to make positive contributions, which surely is a personality characteristic to be encouraged? This is getting a bit rambling now, I'll stop.) Someone let me know if I am on the slippery slope to eugenics, please.

[0] This is testable in a sense – it would take long term tracking of mother and offspring. If mothers were (assisted?) to record emotional states during their whole pregnancy, and then the resulting offspring observed and their emotional states recorded, it might be possible to test whether a strong correlation exists between the mother’s emotions during pregnancy and the child’s predominant emotions. A further study might discover whether (if this holds up) children dominated by negative emotions in infancy are more or less likely to make positive contributions to society (I’m not sure how to measure that - I guess prison sentences or not might be one marker.) Perhaps there are already similar works that I’m not aware of, or someone more educated in psychology could inform me whether this is doable?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
21:42 / 28.02.06
I admit to being slightly bemused by the refusal to address the underlying issue of the sanctity of human life. The value is obvious but the concept of sanctity reduces me to despair. The explicit reference to it's religious origins should be obvious, yet interestingly the former of the two specific justifications begins from the right of women to choose against the wishes of the religion/state/cultural structures which have controlled women's bodies at least since the invention of the state.

The two obvious cases are then:

1) The right of a woman to control her own body.

2) That no child should be born without a resonable chance at being loved and desired.

Given the increasing traffic of children and babies from places in the world where babies are unloved,unwanted and unfortunately born... I am increasingly tending towards thinking the 2 is almost as important a case as 1.
 
 
astrojax69
22:40 / 28.02.06
2) That no child should be born without a resonable chance at being loved and desired.

sure, i don't at all actually disagree with this sentiment, but to play real devil's advocate here why should it be the case?

we raise cattle, f'r instance, that are fed, looked after, treated to keep them reasonably 'happy' because when we kill them, at our timing, we want the meat to be tender. what if there were a good reason to 'farm' humans? why shouldn't we? what sort of 'love' and 'desire' is good enough? where is the line to be drawn?

does this sentiment imply some sort of base-level competency for parents? who determines what a reasonable chance is, or how much love/desire is required and on what basis do they make such a determination? i find it difficult to pinpoint a prescription that isn't somewhere based on a leap of faith...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:25 / 28.02.06
what if there were a good reason to 'farm' humans? why shouldn't we? what sort of 'love' and 'desire' is good enough?

Well developmentally speaking it harbours a child in all kinds of ways if they are not held as a baby and in early childhood. If you can't provide that kind of love and don't desire a child enough to perform that action and no one else can then there's a good argument that there shouldn't be a child.
 
 
astrojax69
01:18 / 01.03.06
developmentally speaking

sure nina, i don't really want to disagree with the premise and suggest we accrue people in less than humane circumstances, but this pre-supposes the actual scenario, more or less, we currently operate within, but presumably, the cognitive richness of children would likely not be a consideration in a reason we might be farming people (for organs? ect...) and so this does not counter that suggestion. so is it 'a good argument that there shouldn't be a child'?

i don't intend to ask how we mightn't get optimised people, i am considering the argument to have any 'farming' of human livestock... what can we premise this claim on: that it is wrong to consider bringing a child into existence unless it is intended to afford that child every opprtunity and facility to optimally mature.

and how does such an argumentc then cope with incidences of birth abnormalities..?
 
 
alas
01:20 / 01.03.06
alas, have you seen any hard and fast data that suggest that most people who are anti-choice feel that way even in cases of rape and incest? i would suggest that, besides the super fundamentalists, many if not most people who are anti-abortion are willing to put that aside if it's a case of rape or incest. as a vehement pro-choice person, as much as they scare me, i actually respect people who are against it no matter what much more than those who waffle in that way. i mean, if yr gonna be all about life, then it's not the fetus' fault that it's a product of rape. but the fact that so many people are willing to make an exception if it is rape or incest to me screams the fact that it's so much more about punishing women for their sexuality. (if only a subconscious punishment.)

Here's the mixed US picture according to the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life (a trustworthy, mainstream source): About a third (35%) say abortion should be generally available, but 23% favor stricter limits on abortion and 31% favor making it illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to save a woman's life. Only about one-in-ten (9%) say abortion should never be permitted. Moreover, while nearly six-in-ten (59%) think it would be a good thing to reduce the number of abortions in the U.S., one-third (33%) say they don't feel this way.

I'm not convinced that waffling signifies more clearly a desire to punish women's sexuality more than the no-exceptions approach. In practice, I don't think this is the case, at any rate.
 
 
alas
01:31 / 01.03.06
Oh, I was basing my understanding of the truly pro-life view, by the way, on groups like the National Right to Life organization, which believes in no rape/incest exceptions, period. They are definitely typical of the actual pro-life activists, although you are correct to say that there's some definite gray area.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
01:43 / 01.03.06
I have a question which came up while discussing this thread with some folks after work. Well, it is more of a puzzle perhaps.

If we accept that a woman can become pregnant by accident (which we do, obviously) due to a breakdown in whatever birth control was being used, or forgetfulness on the part of both partners in using birth control, we have 2 outcomes.

1) The woman in question does not want the child, for whatever reason. I feel that it is then her right to seek an abortion. This can lead to issues where perhaps the man involved wanted a child, only realizing this after the pregnancy was diagnosed (is that the correct term?). I have seen this situation cause relationships to end, and while tragic, I think it is the 'correct' thing in this situation, IE it is not up to the man to decide that his partner should carry the child to term. This, from reading the thread, is (to borrow lingo from my field) working as intended.

2) The woman decides she wants to have the child. Again, this is her decision, her body will be carrying the foetus to term and dealing with the physical issues associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Where the issue arises is in this situation, the woman has all the decision making power, and the man does not want a child. This came up because I was conceived after my mother was told that she could not have children, thus when she slept with my father they took no precautions. As I understand law in the USA, even if the child came about due to malfunctioning birth control, the father would be legally forced to pay child support if the mother demanded it, justification being that if you had sex, even though you tried to prevent pregnancy, the responsibility is yours.

I suppose the question really boils down to the fact that we (my friends and I) were unale to reconcile the accidental pregnancy being terminated in case 1, and the father being forced to pay for an accidental pregnancy that was not terminated in case 2.

My father never paid any child support, because my mother did not go to court for it, and I have never met the man, however I think it is a flaw that should I have, at any point before I turned 18, demanded a blood test and money in court, he would have been forced to pay up.

I realize that we are primarily talking about the woman's perspective in this thread, but this is an issue I would like to hear all of your opinions on.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
11:08 / 01.03.06
the cognitive richness of children would likely not be a consideration in a reason we might be farming people (for organs? ect...)

Why would we need to farm people when we have stem cell research? Surely they would only take up space?
 
 
astrojax69
20:21 / 01.03.06
sure nina, but it was an attempt at an example - the question remains, if we had a good reason to farm people, then ..... dun' matta what the reason, why should humans be treated differently from cows, ducks, fish, any other farmed beast..?
 
 
slinky
06:58 / 02.03.06
"Thought experiment: Assume, if you will, the existence of a 100% safe, effective, and pleasant contraceptive method. Assume that all pregnancies in our hypothetical society are wanted. In such a hypothetical, is there still a place for abortion?"

I think that you've answered your own question, because, as i understand it, abortion is an option for an unwanted pregnacy, for whatever reason, be it the product of rape, or the mother's finacial situation or as been oft repeated, contraceptive failure (as opposed to a wanted pregnancy).

What i'm trying to say, and badly, is that abortion is a personal decision. Yes, the life of a potential person is at risk, regardless of the stage of pregnancy - as a zygote, cluster of cells, embryo, fetus, but in the end, the mother will do what she thinks is best. Perhaps, instead of society tring to force the collective opinion upon the mother through legislation, society can better educate women about some alternative options that are available. After all, in the end, the mother is the one who has an agonising decision to make and a traumatic process to undergo.
 
 
Mister Saturn
03:28 / 05.06.06
This is a really interesting thread. This may not be relevant, but I have a biological and ecological viewpoint on the issue of abortion.

Some people may argue that abortion is not in nature, thus not God's Will, and so on.

But there are examples of abortion - or induced miscarriage - in nature; I finally tracked down the name, and it is strangely named "The Bruce Effect".

It explains how that, discovered in a controlled environment (which may be disputed), that female mice in their early pregnancy stages were capable of terminating their pregnancy. They would be removed from their home and mates, and placed in a new home with new male mice. In this strange environment, it was found that the mouse usually miscarriaged, and within five days, mated with the new mice, becoming pregnant by them.

This occurred in human history, but it was the event of the man killing the mate and children of the woman, and raping her. Or even a woman leaving behind her children for another man.

There are scattered examples of nature dealing with unwanted brood, ranging from miscarriage due to malnutrition, or hamsters eating their young.

Today, our population is overflowing; there seems to be no end to poverty and famine on earth, as well as violence. A friend studying environmental management told me that humanity would have to cull itself eventually, as the world today cannot support the human race; already, we are depleting ocean’s resources, and the climate change is bringing more damage to crops and water supplies. This kind of outlook weights heavily on my decision whether to have children or not.

We live in a world of luxury thanks to science. Babies who would not survive in nature (such as I, with my hereditary deafness) thrive today in societies. To me, morals are a luxury; we can afford to have them. We aren’t resorting to desperate measures to survive, as creatures or even poverty/famine-stricken humans would in nature. I honestly wonder about the opinion and morals of a mother of several starving children in one of the worse-off province of Africa.

Thus, as we encourage more of our population to oppose nature and survive on technology, we may use technology to control it - in some cases, it leads to eugenics - a woman does have the right to decide whether to keep the baby or not, to use technology for that purpose, and her decision would be affected by who the father is - whether he is the "right" mate or not, and by her position in society – whether she can support herself and the child confidently.
 
 
grant
17:13 / 05.06.06
This occurred in human history, but it was the event of the man killing the mate and children of the woman, and raping her. Or even a woman leaving behind her children for another man.

Eh?
 
 
Ticker
01:25 / 06.06.06
I'd like to address the idea of sanctity of human life and sanctity of human death.

A lot of the remarks in this thread approach the issue of death and killing as a moral wrong straight off the bat. I'd like to point out that this is a fairly Western view informed to some extent by judeo-christian morality. Please refer to the excellent book regarding abortion in Japan 'Liquid Life' which details how abortion is not a choice outside of the accepted but within the included options of society. It is often made within the framework of the culture's morality.

The idea of abortion being a choice due to an accident, couching that choice as a last ditch effort reveals this as does the statement 'that it is never easy for women' (I'm paraphrasing, pardon me). There is a moral judgement implied that says if it is easy for a woman, she/the abortion is bad. There is an aura of shame around abortions, that the people failed to act responsibly, that they were young/poor/foolish/uniformed. Where does this shame come from? Why is the willing choice of death of a child by its parent(s) automaticly need to be an extreme choice of a lesser of evils? Or why is the willing amputation of a body part a lesser of evils?

We view death and killing as not parts of our experience, not apart of the approved palette of choices and so we force the people affected in these situations to feel a sense of failure. The good girls abstain, the bad ones get knocked up, the smart ones never get pregnant, and the dumb ones...

Our moral systems are informing every step of this process. If I choose to have a cancerous body part removed I am viewed one way. If I have a perfectly healthy body part removed I am viewed another way, same person.

If I as a living person choose to kill my unborn child, is the act immoral/moral because of my reasons?
If I as a living person choose to kill myself, is the act immoral/moral because of my reasons?

If I personally view death as my right and as part of the process of living, does it not have a sanctity inherent to its state? Can it not morally be the correct state for my child?

We are so afraid of abortion being used 'frivolously' that here in the US a contraceptive 'morning after-pill' is being blocked for over the counter sales. So fearful are we of girls and women rampantly getting knocked up and then Brave-New-Worlding it to the pink clinic that we are forgetting that we are adding a burden to those who already must confront an epic choice.
Do not disparge the woman who has 20 abortions as irresponsible, or the woman who counts it as less than getting a mole removed as callous. For how cheaply do we all look at life and how afraid are we all of understanding death?

There has been a surge of interest in abortion mourning rituals. Women and their partners are looking for ways to establish a new morality around this topic, one without shame and without a label of failure.

While it is a sacred issue and a deeply personal one, I have yet to see the same degree of invasive questioning be leveled at those who choose to bear and raise their offspring.

Why did you make your choice, and are your reasons likely to be community approved? In this age of over population and limited resources, I'd like the dialogue and the options to be more open for both the sanctity of life and death.
 
 
Lurid Archive
07:47 / 06.06.06
But the "sanctity of human death", the choice to have one's limbs removed and the right to suicide don't say anything about the right to kill another being. (I can't say I know much about japanese morality, but I would be extremely surprised if death, in the context of killing another, was viewed as unproblematic morally - while there are cases in which such killing is sanctioned by society, my point stands.)

Surely you *have* to address that in order to comment on the morality underpinning the abortion debate? That is, if you are just assuming that the unborn foetus is no more than tissue belonging to the mother, then your points are relevant...but this assumption essentially is what the debate is about.

That is, it is hard to imagine an argument employing the concept of a sanctity of death - or seeing death as a "morally be the correct state for [a] child" which would allow the *termination* of a newly born child - which no one would ask for, of course. But it is also hard to see the big moral difference between that, and performing an extremely late abortion. The difficult question is then at what point *does* the difference become morally significant - which isn't an easy question, but which you can't simply dismiss either.

So while regret over terminating a potential life may be culturally specific to some degree, I'm not sure that amounts to the greatest defence of abortion, since the goal of realising potential of members of our society is broadly a positive one.
 
 
Ticker
12:15 / 06.06.06
I've been thinking about what you address so clearly Lurid Archive.

(Pardon me if this is a bit sloppy but I'm trying to frame it for this discussion. Suggestions are welcome...)


If an adult kills themselves for a reason (reason A) which we as the society judge to be morally wrong, or uses that same reasoning to kill their three year old child (also reason A) and we find that equally wrong, than in order for us not to find it morally wrong to apply to the decision to kill a fetus, we must acknowledge that we are not viewing the fetus as possessing the same level of personhood.

If however we approve of reason B for the adult and the young child, when it is applied to the fetus we can still make the case for its personhood.

Now we have a very limited amount of plausible B reasons, these would be extreme conditions. There are many more A styled reasons.

My first point is that what we group into the two categories maybe radically different, yet they inform how we as a collective approach the issue.

In our culture it is morally repugnant for an adult to suicide because they cannot feed themselves, or to kill their young child because they cannot feed hir. However we need to acknowledge that this reason has been acceptable to other societies.

In my research of Asian approaches to abortion I have noted that often the idea of fetus as non person is upheld in some of the philosophical traditions. In Confucianism for example, life begins at birth. This allows the culture which is morally informed by this philosophy to accept reason A.

As unpopular as the idea is I would also like to address the fluid lines of the reasons as well as what I believe is the tension of situations causing people to push circumstance into one of the categories.


For example rape and incest are serving as modifiers for those who would normally only support B type reasons, some how allowing them a moral out to change the status of the fetus from person to non person. I state this because those reasons would not be upheld for the adult or young child.

If we agree that a fetus is a non person than the range of reasons for allowing abortion should not be modified with moral judgments of failure/responsibility ect.

1. If our basic premise holds that the fetus is a non person, than any reason is moral for terminating the pregnancy.

2. If we hold that the fetus is a person, only extreme situations that would test against the adult and young child would be moral for terminating the pregnancy.

3. If we hold that the status of the fetus is fluid, sometimes a person, sometimes not, the issue of moral standing is also fluid.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:14 / 06.06.06
If an adult kills themselves for a reason (reason A) which we as the society judge to be morally wrong, or uses that same reasoning to kill their three year old child (also reason A) and we find that equally wrong, than in order for us not to find it morally wrong to apply to the decision to kill a fetus, we must acknowledge that we are not viewing the fetus as possessing the same level of personhood.


But one's own life is something that one has a greater right to dispose of as one wishes than the life of another in most legal (and many moral) systems, yes? Put simply, ending one's own life is not except in a metaphorical sense murder. It is suicide. Killing a three-year-old is not suicide, but murder. Killing a foetus is demonstrably not suicide, so the question becomes "Is killing a foetus murder"? Which is where we come in.

So, if Confucianism believes that life begins at birth, then one is by seeking an abortion committing neither murder nor suicide, so reason (A) in your model is irrelevant (although I would also say that reason A cannot apply to both the situations you describe). So, if we take "reason B" simply to mean "a convincing reason that allows one to termintate a human life, whether one's own or another's", then the Confucian model, which does not identify the unborn as entitled to consideration as human lives, has nothing to say about it. Reason (B) would instead only apply if one concluded that the unborn child was a human life. So, all we have there is that:

a) Some arguments for ending a human life are morally convincing.
b) Some entities are human, and have human lives.
c) If an entity is human, then the arguments described in (a) are morally convincing for ending its life.
d) If an entity is not human, then the arguments described in (a) are not relevant to the consideration of ending or not ending its life.
 
 
alas
16:06 / 06.06.06
Some entities are human, and have human lives.

Wouldn't we also have to add: some human entities are legal persons and have legal rights. Fetuses belong to humanity but are not persons, legally speaking.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:16 / 06.06.06
Do you mean that foetuses may be identifiable as taxonomically human, if you were to be indexing it, but do not exist as human in terms of how they are legally treated?
 
 
alas
16:31 / 06.06.06
Part of the challenging issue, then, is that from the pro-life point of view, their work is continuing a spread of legal personhood, which has in the past been wrongly denied to women and non-"whites" in the United States.

It should be noted, however, that children's legal personhood is complex and not the same as adult legal personhood: no, you can't kill a child with impunity (under Roman law, which was wholly patriarchal, I believe a father technically could?), but a child does not have legal standing in many situations, nor full moral/legal responsibility.

Some pro-life persons would argue, then, that their work is simply a part of the effort to expand legal personhood away from simply belonging to the adult, property-holding white male. But most of them would not in other circumstances say that a child had rights over and above those of hir parents. (A child has rights against the parents in certain cases--e.g., the right not to be abused by them. But not, so far as I know, over and above the parents' rights as legal persons. If that makes sense.)

Making a fetus a full legal person has the effect of creating an entity with rights that supercede the mother's, and have the effect of placing her in a quasi-childlike position.
 
 
alas
16:40 / 06.06.06
Do you mean that foetuses may be identifiable as taxonomically human, if you were to be indexing it, but do not exist as human in terms of how they are legally treated?

Oh, you caught me before my edit & second comment went through: I have edited the final words of my earlier comment from "are not persons" to "are not legal persons." A fetus is still human but not a legal person. (I wonder if the zoe/bios distinction being discussed here, by Deva would be helpful or would it just muddy the waters? Would love to hear from you, Deva!)
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:55 / 06.06.06
Making a fetus a full legal person has the effect of creating an entity with rights that supercede the mother's, and have the effect of placing her in a quasi-childlike position.

Isn't that a slippery slope type of argument (which are often treated with suspicion)? That is, granting a right to life is about as far as you can get on the rights scale from a full legal person. I guess I'm speaking here as someone who has a lot of time for *animal* rights, and I'm suspicious of arguments that go from *any* conception of rights to being a full member of society with voting rights and tax responsibilities in the blink of an eye.
 
 
diz
07:08 / 10.06.06
Part of the challenging issue, then, is that from the pro-life point of view, their work is continuing a spread of legal personhood, which has in the past been wrongly denied to women and non-"whites" in the United States.

They are, indeed, fighting to spread legal personhood, and they see this as consistent with a larger trend of broadening the application of legal personhood status in Western culture (the civil rights movement(s), women's suffrage, etc).

However, the other movements in question were motivated, in a sense, by a desire to have the law catch up with the changing meaning of "person" in the social and cultural sphere. Black people were enslaved, and later denied other rights after being freed, because they were not considered to be people, or at least not to the same degree as whites. As the culture changed (and we could talk about changes in scientific beliefs and economic systems as contributing to those changes), black people were increasingly seen as people, and people struggled to extend the legal definition of personhood to reflect those changes.

However, in no way does any of that obligate us to extend the definition of legal personhood to include entities we do not consider to be persons. Simply because full legal rights once restricted to white propertied males have now been granted to all (mentally competent heterosexual) adults does not obligate us to extend them further.

Hell, we're not obligated to bestow rights on anyone at all, at any time, ever. "Inherent rights" are a legal fiction we agree to maintain because that fiction is useful to us as a society. Universal suffrage for adults, basic civil liberties, etc., are all necessary components of a modern, industrial or post-industrial society, and so we agree to give them to each other. The primary effect of granting fetuses a right to life would be to ban abortion, and that is most definitely not something which is useful to us as a society or conducive to the greater happiness of the citizenry, so what possible argument could there be in favor of so doing?
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:52 / 10.06.06
But that is a bit circular, isn't it Diz? If a foetus isn't a person, then there is no benefit to persons in granting foetuses the right to life. It isn't useful to society, because we have assumed that a foetus isn't part of society and that protecting a foetus produces no gain to us. I'm not very convinced by this line of reasoning.
 
 
Ticker
17:03 / 10.06.06
(sorry if I am addressing things late my brain was slow this last week and I wanted to wait to post on this thread)


But one's own life is something that one has a greater right to dispose of as one wishes than the life of another in most legal (and many moral) systems, yes? Put simply, ending one's own life is not except in a metaphorical sense murder. It is suicide. Killing a three-year-old is not suicide, but murder. Killing a foetus is demonstrably not suicide, so the question becomes "Is killing a foetus murder"? Which is where we come in.

I think Haus you are saying that the right of the individual to suicide negates whether or not we as a society find their reasons moral? Supersedes it?

I don't think we can merely say adults can kill themselves without moral implications and cannot kill other people without them (pause'n'reflect) as well. Are we saying that all suicide is moral, because it is the individual's choice?

If so, than I believe I could argue that all abortion is moral because it is the individual's choice as much as suicide is.

One could argue that a fetus/child/adult are all 'belonging' to society as much as to themselves. So if society does not morally object to an adult suiciding one has to question why the decision of a child would be unacceptable, EXCEPT that we do not find them competent to make such a decision. We would pass judgment on the decision of the parent to safe guard the choice of the child (as we would for an incompetent adult).
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:36 / 10.06.06
Granting a person within a person rights is rather a complicated thing to do. It goes beyond the body into terms of the individual because a foetus cannot survive without the function of the body that hosts it. I'm not sure it could be defined in a way that wouldn't catapult law into all types of unknown areas.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:08 / 10.06.06
I don't think we can merely say adults can kill themselves without moral implications and cannot kill other people without them (pause'n'reflect) as well. Are we saying that all suicide is moral, because it is the individual's choice?

Not really, no. More that a person has a greater ownership over their own life than the life of another. So, one might say that suicide is immoral, if one has a religious framework in which ending one's own life is considered taboo, or one might identify certain acts of suicide as immoral for more utilitarian purposes - if, for example, in doing so the suicide invalidates life insurance deals which would have supported their invalid wife, and so on. However, I don't think one can say that suicide and murder are equivalent, because they are not the same thing. That they both have moral implications is not enough to draw the equivalency - fiddling one's tax return has moral implications, but it is not equivalent to taking another person's life.
 
 
Ticker
23:38 / 11.06.06
Well, I'm a-wondering if we can make a case for the moral killing of another person.

Seems to me we have established in this conversation the rights of the individual to suicide. Do we have rights of the parent to terminate a living child or another person who is viewed as not competent to make their own decision?

If we can say yes there are a set of moral reasons to kill your living external child or incompetent adult-charge then I believe those reasons would apply to a fetus even if you view it as a person.

Also if we are saying that society grants the individual a moral out in the case of suicide (it is your right regardless of your reasons) than I believe this would be grounds for offering the same to those who wish to terminate the fetus within their bodies. In both cases the society is excusing the individual from removing hirself/hir child from participating in the society on the grounds of personal choice, not on moral reasons at all.

because a foetus cannot survive without the function of the body that hosts it

.. therefor in my mind regardless of the state of personhood of the fetus, we are stating it is more a matter of personal choice of the host in the same line of reasoning we are permitting suicide.
 
  

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