Yeah, using that definition is extremely vague as it would invalidate self-defense. If someone tried to use my body without my consent, I would be well within my rights to kill them and I would do so without much consideration for how much pain I caused them or with regards to their life, but that still wouldn’t be considered murder. I see abortion as a similar scenario. Even if I were to entertain the idea that a fetus is a person (which I don’t btw) any women should still have the right to stop it from using her body without her consent, even if doing so kills it.
Self defense is neither inhumane nor barbarous. It also doesn’t involve the death of an innocent person. And saying they’re not persons doesn’t make it true. They are, by every definition of the word, human. How are they not persons?
The child has absolutely no intention in pregnancy; it didn’t have a single choice in the matter. It very much does not fit the definition of self defense.
I never said a fetus wasn’t human, I said a fetus isn’t a person because personhood is a social construct that is granted upon birth. The idea that a fetus has no say in the matter is a moot point. People in the midst of a mental health crisis that are posing a risk to others, for example, can still be killed in self-defense even though they don’t have a say in the matter. But even if you want to entertain the idea that a fetus is a person with the same rights as you and me, that also means that a fetus can’t use another person’s body without their consent. The pregnant person has rights too, unless you want to entertain the idea that a person’s right to live is more important than another person’s right to control their body.
Your comparison of a person having a mental health crisis and a fetus is a false equivalence. You may ethically kill someone threatening your life and property because you did not consent to their actions. A pregnant woman, in contrast, did consent to the presence of the fetus by consenting to sex, and, therefore, waived their Right to control their body in manners that cause harm to (or aggress upon) their unborn child.
Consent to sex is consenting to the possibility of pregnancy, that is true. However, consent may also be withdrawn at anytime. If a person agrees to sex but then changes their mind and wants to stop, continuing to have sex with that person after they withdrew consent is rape, correct? Another example is if I agreed to donate blood or give up a kidney, but then I change my mind before doing so, that’s within my rights to do. The government doesn’t get to come in and take my blood or kidney against my will to keep someone else alive just because I initially consented. Likewise, if a pregnant person decides they don’t want to be pregnant anymore, the government has no right to force them to give up control of their body once their consent has been withdrawn.
If you admit the government has a role, the only role they have is to protect the lives of their subjects, born or unborn. You cannot unilaterally revoke someones Right to Self and Property just because they inconvenience you, which is what occurs in the situation you described above. If we are being consistent in how we recognize Natural Rights, and I’m assuming our understandings meld here, we must recognize that the only time it is ethically permissible to violate someones Right to Self and Property is after they aggress upon you or someone else first. Even then, it is not always the most ethical course of action to end someones life for an aggression. Larceny does not always merit death, to a reasonable man, thus I do not see why the inaction of being conceived does.
The role of government is to uphold and protect the rights of their citizens. According to the U.S. constitution, a citizen is someone who has either been born or naturalized into the United States. A fetus, therefore, is not a citizen and doesn’t have rights. The pregnant person however, is a U.S. citizen and does have rights. So, I would argue that the role in government in this case to to uphold the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person by allowing abortion to remain a legal option. I actually think banning abortion is unconstitutional. Not because of Roe vs Wade, which I acknowledge was a poorly judged opinion and should be overturned, but under the 13th amendment. Forcing someone to give up their bodily autonomy to keep a fetus alive puts them in a position of indentured servitude to a fetus, which like slavery is unconstitutional and illegal.
So, according to your argument, an immigrant, whether legal or illegal, has no rights and are not protected under the agreement of the constitution and the government owes them no protection whatsoever if they have not become citizens?
According to the constitution, that is indeed the case, but that isn’t how we operate as a country. We still grant immigrants, even illegal immigrants basic human rights enjoyed by our own citizens. This is a good will policy rather than constitutionally demanded and I’m not against it. We don’t grand immigrants special rights though that are not enjoyed by our own citizens; so why should fetuses be the one group given the special right to use the bodies of others without their consent? I argue that they should not, meaning abortion should remain a legal option.
Good thing all that overturning Roe V Wade did was return it to the states, rather than outright ban abortions.
But there are times you cannot “withdraw consent” because it’s too late. Drive Drunk or even just driving you consent to the risk of a crash. You cannot not consent to that.
But even laws reflect it’s a person, if you kill a pregnant woman, it’s double homicide. If the unborn is not a person, it’s not a homicide.
If you play blackjack at a casino, you don’t get to revoke your consent after you lose a hand. You don’t get to claim “financial autonomy” so you don’t have to pay up.
But maybe OP has a point. Perhaps we can come to a compromise by considering a fetus ⅗ of a person.
Sure but this isn’t a good analogy to address my stance on bodily autonomy. If you put money down on a gamble and then you lose the gamble, the moment you lose, the money you put down isn’t your money anymore. Refusing to pay at that point would be theft. That’s the equivalent of a pregnant person carrying a child to term, delivering it and becoming a mother, then smothering the infant in its crib because being a mother was too much work. I would agree with you, that infanticide is murder, morally wrong, and should be legally actionable.
But if you initially agreed to play a game of blackjack, but then changed your mind before putting money down and starting to play, the casino shouldn’t have legal authority to block you from leaving and force you to play your hand at blackjack and take your money if you lose that hand.
The aspect of gambling also doesn’t come with nine months of a casino accessing your finances and taking what they want or causing you significant health risks so I don’t see how this could ever be used as a comparable analogy to the loss of bodily autonomy involved in forcing women to carry fetuses to term against their will.
If you had sex you put money down.
Nope, sorry, it doesn’t work that way. If you carry a fetus to term and deliver then you put money down. Consent to sex is not consent to being forced by the government to carry a pregnancy to term.
Fuck the government. There is no excuse to kill children.
Nobody is talking about killing children. Abortion terminates a pregnancy and kills a fetus. Fetuses aren’t children as they have no bodily autonomy and thus are not their own being.
Do they have unique DNA?
Tumors have unique DNA too
And yet they’re not sentient, nor persons.
Do you have a compulsion to prove how stupid you are?
“And yet they’re not sentient, nor persons.”
Neither are fetuses
“Do you have a compulsion to prove how stupid you are?”
Projection
So you just make up excuses to kill children, huh?
“So you just make up excuses to kill children, huh?”
They aren’t children, they are fetuses
So if your children grew up into adulthood, they’re technically not children any more, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re their parent. I don’t even know why people have to argue about this. Before we could use the internet and type here, we all had to grow through that unborn life stage.
The irony is “fetus” is literally Latin for “offspring” AKA
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