Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Proof of Rights) Message-ID: <1911@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 14:07:25 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1911 Posted: Fri Oct 18 14:07:25 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 08:20:25 EDT References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 87 >>> Thank you, Mr. McNeil. I agree with you -- the existence _vel non_ of a >>> given "human right" is not a matter for proof. It is a matter of values. >>> "Can you PROVE . . ." was just a rhetorical question -- Mr. Rosen can no >>> more prove the right to control one's own body than I can prove the right >>> to life of the fetus. [ROSENBLATT] >>Well, if you do not accept the right to control one's own body, you just >>gave up and lost your own argument. [R. ROSEN] > I said the existence of such a right could not be proved. Rather ironic that you chose to omit the entire section in which I showed how this tears a hole right in the middle of your argument. If you intend to say that there is no such right, then the fetus has even less right to its own body than the woman whose body it occupies, since it takes from that other body without consent. In either case, I found it very interesting that you blithely left out the section in which I explained that to ignore the existence of that right is to make any arguments you might have about abortion worthless, because by such reasoning anyone could just claim that the fetus doesn't have the right to control its own body. > I believe the right to control one's own body is not absolute. Can I translate this to mean YOU choose the cases where it doesn't hold arbitrarily? Or do you have some clear logical distinction to make? > The right to control your body to do something you want to do with it, > and the right to be free of being killed, are different rights. Obviously the former and not the latter of my two possible choices above is true. I'm not even going to bother with the second half of the article (regarding Rosenblatt's claims about what McNeil said) since I think the point has been made, and since it seems from the state of the latter portion of his article (ending in midsentence followed by a good chunk of my article) that he didn't really reply to it as intended. -- "to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting." - e. e. cummings Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Proof of Rights) References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> >>> Thank you, Mr. McNeil. I agree with you -- the existence _vel non_ of a >>> given "human right" is not a matter for proof. It is a matter of values. >>> "Can you PROVE . . ." was just a rhetorical question -- Mr. Rosen can no >>> more prove the right to control one's own body than I can prove the right >>> to life of the fetus. [ROSENBLATT] >>Well, if you do not accept the right to control one's own body, you just >>gave up and lost your own argument. [R. ROSEN] > I said the existence of such a right could not be proved. Rather ironic that you chose to omit the entire section in which I showed how this tears a hole right in the middle of your argument. If you intend to say that there is no such right, then the fetus has even less right to its own body than the woman whose body it occupies, since it takes from that other body without consent. In either case, I found it very interesting that you blithely left out the section in which I explained that to ignore the existence of that right is to make any arguments you might have about abortion worthless, because by such reasoning anyone could just claim that the fetus doesn't have the right to control its own body. > I believe the right to control one's own body is not absolute. Can I translate this to mean YOU choose the cases where it doesn't hold arbitrarily? Or do you have some clear logical distinction to make? > The right to control your body to do something you want to do with it, > and the right to be free of being killed, are different rights. Obviously the former and not the latter of my two possible choices above is true. I'm not even going to bother with the second half of the article (regarding Rosenblatt's claims about what McNeil said) since I think the point has been made, and since it seems from the state of the latter portion of his article (ending in midsentence followed by a good chunk of my article) that he didn't really reply to it as intended. -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr