You can try, but I have an "easy" button on you, so you had better have a logical point.
False premise #1:
That would be why the U.S. Constitution exists, as surly "society" has not held the interests of individual freedom for the individual....take radical Islam, for example. That "society" does not exist for the purpose you claim, so your claim is false.
No, society has most definitely held the individual interests of its members at heart. Radical Islamic societies act the way they do because they have a specific purpose: to ensure that the greatest number possible of their members reach Paradise. But we are speaking of American society, which exists to promote and protect the individual freedoms of its members. So the claim is not false, since we are not speaking of radical Islamic societies.
False premise #2:
Even if "society" existed for the purpose you assume: eliminating late term abortion, affording men a legal tool in protecting their children from their mother's violence, affording parents a legal tool in protecting their grandchildren from their minor-child's violence, providing a legal compulsion against the violation of what is arguably "a compelling state interest" in the protection of late-term unborn can not be accurately cast in the negative light of "for purposes of selfish gain".
It is for selfish gain. As I pointed out, you have every right to have another child with another woman; your demand that it be THIS child, born to term by THIS woman, is your self-centered wish, based solely on your desires. You are not protecting the rights of the child in this argument, you are protecting your rights to your property. The state has a compelling interest in preventing you from making another member of society into your property -- namely your wife.
We are speaking of your hypothetical right to protect the life of your child, as an individual. We are not speaking of the right of pro-life people to vote their conscience and try to eliminate abortion. They have that right, provided their goal is to serve the best interests of society -- which is to protect the individual's freedoms. If their goal is selfish, and infringes unjustly on the rights of individual members of this society, then the laws they enact should be stricken down. They do, however, have the right to try to find a way to achieve their goals within that framework, or, should there be enough pro-life people in the country, to change the Constitution and to change the goals of our society. You, as an individual, do not have the right to force your wife to surrender her freedom for your selfish desires.
Come to think of it, the child does not have the right to force the mother to surrender her freedom for its selfish desires, either. In essence, it is a question of who has first claim to sovereignty over the body in question, and the answer must always be the woman whose body it is. Not the parents of the minor children (who are enslaving their daughter in order to protect their grandchild -- hardly a moral stance) nor the husband who impregnated her, nor the child who parasitizes her. It is her body, it is her freedom; all the rest of you are infringing on it, and society has the right to stop you.
Word for word that is the Pro-Life argument.
Then you agree with me?
All mainstream PL does is the exact same methodology as mainstream PC: each vote, write Representatives, hold rallies, pass petitions, etc. In the end PL is casting votes and speaking out, no different than PC, yet it is PC who claims that PL is somehow a villain for exorcizing their perfectly legal constitutional right to vote in the manner they please.
In this thread, I am not painting pro-life as a villain, I am painting you as the villain, since you offered yourself for that role. Pro-life has the right to try to eliminate abortion as long as they are not doing it for selfish reasons, and as long as their efforts are intended to protect the freedoms of the individual members of society. I doubt that is the goal of the pro-life movement, but if you can make an argument that it is, then so be it: I'll see you at the polls.
You are just like PL in this way, so if they have no legitimate ground to attempt to have their will in the law, neither do you.
There is a difference: which side is attempting to live up to the purpose of society, which is to enact laws to protect the freedoms and rights of its individual members? It is not pro-life, which seeks to reduce the freedoms of individual members of society. If the ends are not moral, then the means do not excuse the ends.
False premise #3:
Abortion is not a right.
This very easily leads into an involved conversation on Roe and what laws have come into being since 1973 which logically change the outcome of Roe based on the reasoning in Roe, however I will not divert to that here.
Abortion is not a "right" specifically granted nor denied by the Constitution, there for abortion is a state issue, and if a given state establishes abortion as a right, then we will have to pick this up when we have actual legislation before us and can see the terms of it.
The right to force a woman to bear a child to term because you happened to impregnate her is not spelled out in the Constitution, either. So if I am arguing for a non-existent right, then so are you.
As to whether the right should be determined by states or not, take that up with the Supreme Court. My premise is that government, state or federal, has the right to limit your ability to limit the rights of others for selfish reasons.
Also, remember, rights have rank.
My right to the "care, control and custody" of my child -vs- her legal ability (not right) to violate my said right is a vicious fight on both fronts.
But bodily sovereignty will carry the day. It is far more basic and fundamental than is the right to protect a parent's interests in his child. Your body, your self, must always come first.
My argument supported by Troxel is an argument seeking to protect my individual rights from being violated. By arguing against it in the manner that you have, saying that a woman should have the right to abort my child simply if she decides that it's bad luck because she sneezed, you argue against my individual right, and those are guilty of what you say no one should do to another.
The individual right you are arguing for does not exist, because it removes the rights from another member of society for your benefit as an individual; not for her benefit, as with parental control of minor children, nor for society's benefit, as society has no stake in your particular child, nor for the child's benefit, as the child is not yet a member of society and has no rights to be protected: your benefit alone. That is why I termed it "selfish." You don't have the right to do that, and so society is not infringing on your rights at all.
I change my argument.
Also, please keep in mind that if SCOTUS were to establish "personhood" prenataly, they need not do it at conception. "Personhood" could be established prenataly at such a time where the ZEF has a formed and functional neural cortex, and I doubt that PC nor PL would have much, if any, solid legal ground to argue if that happened.
Probably not. Fortunately for the purpose of continuing this argument, I was incorrect when I said that it comes back to fetal personhood; it doesn't. It comes back to who has first claim to the body in question, and who thus has the individual freedom that is being infringed by other interested parties: it is the woman, not the fetus, and so it matters not at all if the fetus is in fact a person. The woman's body, the woman's choice.
