CoffeeSaint
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2005
- Messages
- 1,088
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- Liberal
The presence of the child is a wound. It is a stigma placed on the woman by the action of the rapist, and through no fault of her own. You cannot see this as her responsibility. She should be able to remove the invader. Yes, I am using loaded language to describe the child, because the counterargument rests on the concept of the child's innocence. It is not the child who is at fault, it is the rapist, but the child is still associated with that assault. It is not only a human with rights, it is a knife, and if the woman wants to remove it and bleed to death, let her.Felicity said:The child did not rape her. The presence of the child is not the continuation of the rape it is a wound. I worded it poorly when I said it before in this way: "1. She could view such a pregnancy as a continuation of the assault to which the fetus is a co-victim..." I did not mean that the baby was violating her--I meant that the consequences of the assault continued throughout the pregnancy caused by the assault. I apologize for being unclear and confusing on that.
Sometimes that is the wise choice lest you bleed to death by removing it. Same goes with bullets left in place since removal would cause more trauma. I get your point though...A knife, however, is not a human with inalienable rights himself.
You don't think it's moral. You don't think it's logical. But when it isn't your body, why should you get to choose? Yes, the child should be given consideration, but the woman should be given just as much, and you refuse to do that. The child's life does not justify enslaving the mother.Felicity said:Shouldn't she know EXACTLY what she's doing? Shouldn't she be in a healthy mental state when she considers the options? And lastly--shouldn't the other human who's very LIFE is hanging in the balance be given consideration and have his inalienable rights respected? I cannot justify taking a life--even for the possible emotional ease of a victim of a horrible crime. It is immoral--and most definitely illogical.
Yes. I can agree with what you say above. It still does not justify taking the child's life.
Nothing particular intended by this; a personal habit of mine is to call my opponents "sir" during a debate, and that term doesn't fit you. And by the way, of course I'm mad at you. You are arguing a position I personally find abhorrent. Does that matter? Many of your confederates find my position equally abhorrent, and have gone so far as to call me a monster. I wasn't trying to insult you in any way; I have great respect for your intelligence and your ability to debate rationally. Do we have to be friends, too?Felicity said:ewww...don't like that...makes it sound like you're mad at me....whadIdo??? (When I called you Madame)
Have I not done this? The mother has the right to control her own body. The child's continued existence forces her to give her body's resources to the child; if she chooses to sacrifice herself for the child, all well and good. But if the sacrifice of her body for the child is against her will, it is enslavement, the control of the mother's body and life without compensation and without the consent of the controlled. If she chooses the sacrifice, the child's rights are paramount, even though she still loses her freedom to control her own body, as she must now live for the child, as well as herself; if she chooses not to live for the child, the child must be removed from her. If this can be done without the child losing its life, she would not have the right to terminate its life; but the child does not have the right to squat in her womb, so to speak.Felicity said:And will you answer the obvious question? What about the unwanted child's inalienable right to life? You do not argue the "personhood" of the unborn human. You do not argue that there exists a right to life. You simply state the mother has the right to her body and somehow that trumps the rights of the unborn human. Would you explain your logical reasoning of that point?
The child does have the right to life. You use that fact to force the mother to sacrifice her body for that child. I use the mother's right ton control her body to sacrifice the child's right to live. Are we that different, in the end? I, the murderer of innocents, and you, the enslaver of mothers?
Well and good; please stop arguing how a woman could or should feel after a rape, then.Felicity said:I agree that it is difficult to generalize "feelings" and that is why I think the issue should be looked at with compassion, but objectively as possible so that changeable and unreliable feelings are not the basis of a "choice" but rather rational thought.
Ah, so his responsibility, and thus his right to control, is voided by his violation of the rights of others; this is why we can put him in jail, despite his inalienable right to liberty, correct? What, then, of the fetus's violation of the mother's rights?Felicity said:That is true that the culpability would be shared--but ultimately she would be the one making the final "choice" in an abortion. He would be responsible for the situation of her pregnancy, but she would be responsible along with him for the termination of the pregnancy.
That's not so as pointed out above.
His violation of other's rights negates any right he may have had.
If her responsibility starts and stops at the decision to terminate a pregnancy, because the conception of the child was only the rapist's choice, then she should be able to make a choice; otherwise, she has no responsibility. You cannot be held responsible for an action you did not choose.
All right, then. You have no ability to compromise, and you cannot convince me to abandon everything that I believe and change wholeheartedly to your side. This discussion has just become pointless. I'm honestly very sorry to hear that, and I hope that you can find more fertile debate elsewhere.Felicity said:I think it should be pretty clear I can't justify depriving a human being of his rights without compromising the certainty of all our rights. If a basic human right can be taken away from an individual without reasonable justification that is applicable in every situation, there is no meaning in the claim that mankind has any "rights" at all. Besides my not having any authority over inalienable rights--to "compromise" suggests that even "inalienable" rights can be "alienated" from an individual if enough people "compromise" on the issue. It's just contradictory to the very concept of inalienable rights.
I would "prefer" that incremental step toward fewer deaths--but I am afraid that the cost of the compromise would undermine all peoples so-called "inalienable" rights.