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From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: A not-so-bogus analogy (Room 317.5)
Message-ID: <834@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Mar-85 18:26:34 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.834
Posted: Tue Mar 12 18:26:34 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Mar-85 04:03:07 EST
Reply-To: pvt1047@wucec1.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 82

kjm@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ken Montgomery), responding to Carlton Hommel, writes:
> I perceive a bogus analogy here.  Separation of "siamese" twins is
> not analogous to abortion of fetuses.

And refusal to provide vital organs for transplant is?  (Remember,
Carlton Hommel's analogy was a rebuttal to someone who drew an analogy
between abortion and refusal to provide a kidney to one who needed one.)

> Siamese twins form together; they have joint ownership of the organs
> they share.  Thus for one to force the other to undergo an operation
> involving the shared organs involves an infringement of the other's
> rights.  But fetuses, on the other hand, form after their mothers; they
> do not share any joint ownership with their mothers.

"I was here first"?  Why should the temporal order matter?  Your other
point, about ownership, is more convincing.  But not convincing enough --
how does one determine ownership?  After all, ownership is a moral concept;
the owner is said to have the right to use what is owned and to exclude
others from its use; so statements about ownership would seem to beg the
question.  There is a better explanation of why most people would judge the 
kidney transplant case differently from the Siamese-twin-separation case
(i.e., why they would favor the "right to life" in the Siamese twin case
and the "right to control one's body" in the kidney case).  Namely, most
people seem to think a person has a right to be left undisturbed from the
natural, ordinary situation in which they find themselves.  Thus, by this
principle, if the fetus counts as a moral-equivalent-of-a-person, then it
has the right not to be aborted.

I take it that the point you have been trying to make, Ken, is that "*even
if* a fetus *were* a person, it still wouldn't have a right not to be 
aborted."  I am saying that as long as you argue on an "intuitive" level
(trying to draw analogies to cases that we can agree about), most people
are going to disagree with you.  In other words, the "pro-lifers" have the
better side of this argument (this "even if" argument).  Of course, you can
always argue that the "intuitive" judgements most people have are wrong.

From: kjm@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ken Montgomery)
> >The ability to feel pain means that animals deserve some protections, 
> >like some of the animal welfare protection laws we have now.
>Why does the ability to feel pain imply that protection is deserved?
>By that standard, if someone were to show that bacteria feel pain,
>we'd have to stop using antibiotics!

I think it's been pretty well shown that they *don't* feel pain.  However
I find nothing absurd about the notion that a tiny creature could deserve 
protection; maybe the point is that bacteria cause us pain?--but then we
have a counterbalancing reason to kill them (aside from the fact,
mentioned above, that they *don't* feel pain.)  But enough of this absurd
counterfactual discussion.  What about my point, about the animal welfare
protection laws we have now; should these be totally disposed of (as pro-
choice rhetoric logically implies)?  Talk about absurdities ...

> >> [ Mr. Sanders contends that "natural right" has no meaningful
> >>   definition, and that perhaps "permission" or "consent" should
> >>   be used in place of "natural right", since rights ultimately
> >>   depend on social agreement.  -KJM ]
> >A meaningful definition of the concept of a natural right:  a person A
> >has a (moral, natural) right against person(s) B to do X iff B ought,
> >out of respect for A, not interfere with A's doing X. [Torek]
>Please define "respect".  My dictionary does not give a definition
>which makes sense in the above context. [-KJM]

I think it's clear enough from context, but anyway:  respect ~= some
positive regard for.  To do something out of respect for someone is 
(roughly) to do it because you think he deserves it.

> >... a person ought to do X in a particular situation iff she would do
> >X if she were informed, rational, and free.  This is not a definition
> >of right action, just an empirical test.  But it's a valid test. [me]
>It's not a valid test, since two "informed, rational, and free" people
>confronted with identical situations may do two different things.
>This definition has another hole: one person's rational self-interest
>may conflict with that of another. [-KJM]

First point:  if so (I doubt it), then what's right for them to do in the
situation differs between the two of them.  Second "hole":  if so (I agree
here), then EITHER they can conflict by both doing what is right, OR one or 
both of them would (if informed, rational, free) do something different 
from acting purely in self-interest, such as taking account of the other's
interests in some way.  (I think the latter.)
--
Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047