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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Human beings and their Rights
Message-ID: <1373@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 19:42:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1373
Posted: Wed Jul 31 19:42:11 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 01:47:28 EDT
References: <392@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1259@pyuxd.UUCP> <113@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1310@pyuxd.UUCP> <269@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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>>                 Another way to look at them is to say that there are
>>certain obvious things available to an autonomous life form, and that to
>>form a society you place restrictions on people that limit universal
>>rights.
>>         Such as allowing people to do what they will within the limits
>>of not harming other people.

> Here's the heart of our disagreement.  I recognize that this is your 
> main principle, but I don't agree that is an absolute guide for society
> in framing legal rights.  I think it is perfectly moral for society to
> ban heroin use, or prostitution, and I think it would be moral for society
> to ban abortion-on-demand EVEN IF "killing the fetus" were NOT "harming
> other people."  I think it would be moral for society to ban the killing
> and eating of animals, although I would not agree with such a ban.

That's a good definition of moral:  an arbitrary restriction because
we say so.  Getting down to it, seriously, without the "I say so" crap,
when the rubber hits the road, because I am an organism with volition and
the ability to act, I can do whatever I want (that I am capable of doing).
What prevents me from doing things?  Practicality.  (I can't fly under my
own power.)  Force and restraint of others.  And/or, the fact that by
agreeing to a certain set of rules as a member of society, I will (supposedly)
be free of force and restraint and interference AND I will enjoy the benefits
of the society.  Skipping practicality (I don't think we need moral codes
to tell people that they can't do what they're not capable of doing), that
leaves force/restraint and agreement to a moral code.  What is the purpose
of the society?  To provide benefits for its members.  What right does a
society have to take away "rights" from me?  A limited right insofar as it
makes regulations forbidding interference with other human beings, so as
to maximize the benefits of the society.  What other justification can you
come up with, besides "we say so", to support any moral restriction?

> But even those who accept your main principle do not have to come to your
> conclusion about abortion.  Who decides what "harming" means?  Can it
> include merely offending others, as flashers or posters of sexist pinups
> or racist symbols do?  Can it include mere economic harm, like refusing
> to buy from someone whose politics (or race) you don't like?  Whatever it
> means, "harming" surely includes "killing."

The definition of harm is precisely what debates on how far morality
can go in terms of restriction should be all about.  Instead, they have
been clouded by other things as the debaters seem to have lost sight of
that goal.  Again, can you kill something that is not strictly alive? ...

> And who decides what "people" means?  I'm not going to rehash all the
> arguments in net.abortion over whether the fetus is a "person."

But you did bring it up.

> My point
> is that these arguments exist, on both sides, and even a society that
> agrees that a citizen can do anything he wants to as long as he does not
> harm other people can reasonably conclude that killing a fetus is harming
> a person and therefore not a right to be recognized.

You're not making the point you're making.  (Paradox time.  Colonel Klink?
Call Colonel Hofstadter immediately!)  You're assuming your conclusion
(that the fetus is a person) as part of your argument while admitting that
you don't have the answer to the question.

>>>One million abortions a year is pretty awful, but it's still better than the
>>>1.5 million abortions now being performed legally under the 1973 all-male
>>>Supreme Court's grant of a woman's right to abort her fetus. (ROSENBLATT)

>>"Pretty awful"?  Perhaps you and Newton and Wheeler should get together and
>>form the "We've proved abortion is wrong by assuming it's wrong" League.
>>. . .					   	  Given your assumption
>>that abortions are horrible as part of your proof that it is, I'd say you
>>don't have much of an idea what rights are about.  Nor do you seem to care.

> When I write that one million abortions a year is pretty awful, that is not
> part of any "proof" -- it's my opinion.  Nor am I trying to "prove" that
> abortions are horrible.  What I am trying to show is that a pro-choice
> argument based on
> 	"who are you to tell her how her body is to be used?" and
> 	"The point is that it's a woman's right to remove things
> 	 from her body that she doesn't want inside of it."
> assumes things that so directly imply pro-choice that it proves nothing
> to one who is not already pro-choice.  

If you can't back up your "opinion" when attempting to legislate it as
morality, I suggest you back off.  The argument boils down to more than
that.  It boils down to the weighing of priorities, and the evidence that
the not-yet-living thing inside the woman's body, using her internal
resources for sustenance, cannot logically take precedence over her
own rights.  To do so would make removal of tumors, or even viruses,
illegal.  Or are you just being arbitrary?

>> The question of rights boils down to "Who's to stop you?"  (RICH ROSEN)

> I agree.  Once something is made illegal, you have no *legal* right to do it,
> and someone (i.e., the police with their guns) will stop you.

But you have the legal right to change that law.  And you have good grounds
for doing so when the basis of that law is nothing but an arbitrary
restriction of human rights.

>> The fight for rights is a fight to squelch those who would. (RICH ROSEN)

> I agree with that, too.  The right-to-lifers, who have nothing at all to gain
> personally from saving fetuses from abortion, are fighting to squelch those
> who have made it legal to interfere with the fetus's right to life.

But IS it a "right" to life?  Does it have the right to usurp the body
of another human being?  If I cut open Ken Arndt's head and fit myself
inside (easy task:  the head is inflated in size so much that I could
easily fit, and the lack of a brain leaves lots of empty space :-), attaching
myself to his circulatory system, would Ken have the right to remove me?
Of course he would.  Even if my life depended on my continuous attachment.

>>	The other "versions of natural law" you describe involve
>>others' usurping of personal rights, and thus it is YOU my friend who would
>>have to justify such "other versions".

> Yes, I *would* have to justify my ordering of the relative rights of the 
> pregnant woman, the fetus, and the father.

Your own articles on "a man's right to procreate given by the Constitution"
taking precedence over a woman's right to her own body (sexist? or just
arbitrary again?) show how bogus your position is.

> Anyone with a moral system
> who is trying to convince others of its validity would have to justify it
> to an outsider.  My point is that that includes Rich Rosen, too.  His moral
> system, which includes
>>							rights to do
>> whatever one wishes that doesn't harm other people,
> 
> and *postulates* "personal rights" that the banning of abortion "usurp[s],"
> also has to be justified.  If it were self-evident, it would be self-evident
> even to me and the other pro-lifers, including those in State legislatures
> who will soon be deciding what limits to put on abortion.

Perhaps the fact that is isn't is borne out by your preconceptions about
precedence.  I didn't think the owner of the body coming before other
people or things sounded very "preconceptive" to me.

>  At the risk of
> boring our readers, let me repeat what I wrote on July 25:  If Rich Rosen
> wants to keep society from banning abortions again, it's not enough for his
> arguments to be good enough to convince the feminists (both pro-life and
> pro-choice) in netnewsland.  They've got to be good enough to convince
> the anti-feminist and neutral State legislatures out there, who wouldn't
> even pass the Equal Rights Amendment.  In fact, it's kind of good that
> Mr. Rosen feels he doesn't have to justify his moral system, because if
> he could, he might convince some legislators to allow the abortions to
> continue.

As I mentioned in another article, the notion that an idea is only as
right as the number of people who accept it is balderdash.  The fact that
the people who reject these notions engage in preconception of the shoddiest
kind, ASSUMING the veracity of a religious book as the precedent of people's
rights, ASSUMING tradition and "it's always been this way" as an arbiter
of justice, etc. only shows what kind of leaders we've elected, and what
kind of manipulation people have been subjected to to indoctrinate them
in this way.  You can't convince such people of much of anything within
the realm of reason.  They have blind faith in their own "correctness".
Press them for answers, press them for evidence, and they'll call you
names, or punch you in the face.  So much for the weight of their position.
But let's DO continue such pressing.  They can only resort to obfuscation,
bamboozlement, and further indoctrination for so long.
-- 
"Because love grows where my Rosemary goes and nobody knows but me."
						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr