Should a woman's bodily autonomy be disregarded when it comes to pregnancy?

[MysticSang'ha]

All the issues you mentioned are intertwined. It's obvious life begins at conception because if not, there would be no pregnancy. And if life begins at conception, her body is no longer her own, but the home of another human being. If this is true, which it is, anything she does to harm the child, excluding situations where the mother's life is in imminent danger, is a breach of the child's right to life under the US Constitution.

When are people issued a social security number?

 

[jchristopher]

When are people issued a social security number?

Long after they become people

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Long after they become people

Not according to the constitution.

Do you celebrate your date of "becoming" based on your birthdate or the date of your conception?

 

[viole]

We live in a world full of intent and determinism does not have any. Since this is apparently not going to be acknowledged I will instead give some comic relief that at least mentions the subject.

Well, the fact that I cannot possibly carry out that experiment does not prevent us to ask the question and analyze the possible absurdities, if any. Absurdities that you fail to provide, despite your claims of annihilation. Einstein developed relativity by, among other things, imagining himself to be a photon, so I would not underestimate the power of gedanken-experiments serving as intuition support to come to some truths.

And I don't know what you mean with a world full of intent. Do you mean humans, or do you think that things like a galaxy or stones have intent?

In the former case, I could say that we live in a world full of eyes/legs/noses/etc. as well, and determinism does not have any, either. That is hardly an annihilating proof against determinism. It is actually a non-sequitur as big as a house.

The question is: what makes you really single out the products of your brain's operations (love, desire, intent) from the products of, say, your immune system? What is so special about intent that makes you put it on a pedestal so impervious to rational analysis, if not your (possibly deterministic) desire to do so?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Oh I gave mine way back in the beginning of the thread. Feel free to go back before the many pages of the Bible tangent to read it.

Ok, picking up where I left off yesterday.

So you do have a foundation for rights. I as a Christian know the bible well and do not recall any verse granting bodily autonomy to anyone especially if it costs the life of another. I am not going back and reading this entire thread but if you can just give the verses you think give you this right (merely book and chapter is fine), then we may proceed.

Being a legal argument, and has been stated many times, go from our Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Not the Declaration of Independence.

The bill of rights enumerates rights but it does not ground them. The declaration grounds them. It seems you and I agree that only God can grant rights but you need to show he granted this particular right. BTW I care about what is right and wrong and much less what is legal or illegal. If you think because it happens to be legal to take a life (and that seems to vary by time) then you may be satisfied but before I kill another human I want to know I am right, not merely in tune with the social fashion of the moment.

I agree. But....funny....how ironic.

If you believe the bible there is little irony in our agreeing.

Oh, take a chill pill and back off a bit, Robin. This whole "not getting off the hook" rhetoric is so brutish. You're better than that.

There was nothing trivial or sarcastic in what I said. I was going to switch topics and wanted to make sure you did not think I was no longer going to require a basis for the right you claim to have. I don't know why your defensive about that.

As a citizen, I'm recognized by this country to ideally have freedom in so far in that I do not violate the rights of other citizens. The same as it is for men.

If you kill a child in the womb are you not deny every right (at least divine rights) that individual has, and to do so by demanding your own rights is hypocritical. It is like the southern politicians who demanded their own freedom while denying it to black men. I don't understand why your comparing women's rights to men. For one we are different and I have no idea which ones but I would imagine al kinds of rules that apply to one would not to the other. This is not a women's lib issue.

Do you believe men and women should have rights that include bodily autonomy? Your turn to answer.

Why would what I prefer matter? Anyway I think they should but I also think they should and do have limits. No society grants supreme sovereignty concerning autonomy to anyone. And if there is one place where that limit would be drawn it is when it concerns taking the life of another human being.

So we are left where we started.

1. I need grounds for your actually having this right. If you say the bible grants them then fine, where?
2. Even if God granted you that right then he did not grant it to you carte blanch and you are going to have to show your right to autonomy has sovereignty over the child in the womb's right to life.
3. No scripture and no law grants complete rights to autonomy for anyone in all circumstances and the differences if any between a man's right's and a women's is irrelevant here.

 

[1robin]

No worries, mate.

Very well.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Ok, picking up where I left off yesterday.

So you do have a foundation for rights. I as a Christian know the bible well and do not recall any verse granting bodily autonomy to anyone especially if it costs the life of another. I am not going back and reading this entire thread but if you can just give the verses you think give you this right (merely book and chapter is fine), then we may proceed.

No, I am not a Christian, and I do not see the credibility in the Bible that you do. I gave my reasoning before the thread took the tangent.

The bill of rights enumerates rights but it does not ground them. The declaration grounds them. It seems you and I agree that only God can grant rights but you need to show he granted this particular right. BTW I care about what is right and wrong and much less what is legal or illegal. If you think because it happens to be legal to take a life (and that seems to vary by time) then you may be satisfied but before I kill another human I want to know I am right, not merely in tune with the social fashion of the moment.

Depends on how "God" is defined, but again, that topic is much too broad to go into and we would be chasing shadows again here.

If you believe the bible there is little irony in our agreeing.

I don't believe in it. The irony is applicable.

There was nothing trivial or sarcastic in what I said. I was going to switch topics and wanted to make sure you did not think I was no longer going to require a basis for the right you claim to have. I don't know why your defensive about that.

Just wanting to tone things down. It's a highly emotionally charged topic, and then add a religious book to it all simply raises the bristle-factor. If you say you are not letting me off the hook for a particular debate topic or subtopic, that already places me on the defensive end and does little to further understanding between two diametrically opposed positions.

There is common ground SOMEWHERE. I'm open to finding it.

If you kill a child in the womb are you not deny every right (at least divine rights) that individual has, and to do so by demanding your own rights is hypocritical. It is like the southern politicians who demanded their own freedom while denying it to black men. I don't understand why your comparing women's rights to men. For one we are different and I have no idea which ones but I would imagine al kinds of rules that apply to one would not to the other. This is not a women's lib issue.

It most certainly is a women's lib issue.

Blacks historically were not granted the same rights because they had been biologically assumed to be on the level of chattel. No cognizance. No ability to feel pain. They could just work, and based off that assumption, they were denied the same rights as whites.

Because of these assumptions - including calling terminating a pregnancy "killing a child" - it's very easy to advocate for denying rights to a woman to decide what her uterus and her entire endocrine system, her entire cardiovascular system, her entire body is doing during a pregnancy.

Then we see rhetoric that so glibly says "once pregnant, a woman no longer owns her own body. It isn't hers anymore. It's nothing more than a house for another human being."

I've been pregnant twice. And, it's not an inconvenience, I'll tell you. It ineffaceably changes the entire body for life. I completely and totally deny that during pregnancy that I had no ownership...and my doctors will agree with me.

In their offices, I was the primary patient.

Why would what I prefer matter? Anyway I think they should but I also think they should and do have limits. No society grants supreme sovereignty concerning autonomy to anyone. And if there is one place where that limit would be drawn it is when it concerns taking the life of another human being.

As do I. But where you and I demarcate "personhood" is where the problem lies.

So we are left where we started.

1. I need grounds for your actually having this right. If you say the bible grants them then fine, where?
2. Even if God granted you that right then he did not grant it to you carte blanch and you are going to have to show your right to autonomy has sovereignty over the child in the womb's right to life.
3. No scripture and no law grants complete rights to autonomy for anyone in all circumstances and the differences if any between a man's right's and a women's is irrelevant here.

Well, I need you to start somewhere else, since I do not share your views on the Bible nor it's relevance.

 

[leibowde84]

I take that to be a yes. Ok where does a woman get this right to bodily autonomy from? No person and no atom in the universe possessed that right to dispense to anyone else. What is it's source?

The source is the social contract between citizen and state in the United States. We all have this right in this country, but this is not the case everywhere. Bodily autonomy is expressly stated (by definition) in the constitutional amendment that ended slavery. No body, fully grown or not, has the right to demand the use of anyone else's body against their will.

 

[leibowde84]

All the issues you mentioned are intertwined. It's obvious life begins at conception because if not, there would be no pregnancy. And if life begins at conception, her body is no longer her own, but the home of another human being. If this is true, which it is, anything she does to harm the child, excluding situations where the mother's life is in imminent danger, is a breach of the child's right to life under the US Constitution.

Why do you think that the fetus has a right to part ownership of the woman's body? Simply out of necessity?

As you should know, the right to live or survive does not obligate anyone to give up the use of their body against their will. For example, if someone is dying from a faulty liver, the state cannot force anyone to donate the liver simply because the person needing it has a "right to life." So, your logic is severely flawed on this. A person's right to life does not give authority for the right to bodily autonomy to be infringed.

 

[leibowde84]

Which doctrine and what were my reasons for believing in it which you disagree with?

The accuracy/reliability of the Bible I guess. I think that you have a lot of assumptions about scholarly agreement that simply aren't true, but that is only because it contradicts what I have seen in the many lectures, debates, and books I have seen. But, I understand that a lot of this would be subjective in a way.

 

[leibowde84]

Long after they become people

Where do you get the crazy notion that simply living inside of something or depending on it for survival somehow gives you ownership?

 

[leibowde84]

All the issues you mentioned are intertwined. It's obvious life begins at conception because if not, there would be no pregnancy. And if life begins at conception, her body is no longer her own, but the home of another human being. If this is true, which it is, anything she does to harm the child, excluding situations where the mother's life is in imminent danger, is a breach of the child's right to life under the US Constitution.

So, if someone squats in your house, does it instantaneously become theirs? It is their "home" now, right?

 

[1robin]

Well, the fact that I cannot possibly carry out that experiment does not prevent us to ask the question and analyze the possible absurdities, if any. Absurdities that you fail to provide, despite your claims of annihilation. Einstein developed relativity by, among other things, imagining himself to be a photon, so I would not underestimate the power of gedanken-experiments serving as intuition support to come to some truths.

My absurdities have been explained exhaustively. Determinism cannot adequately explain why it produces desires, plans, intentions and then actualizes them billions of times each day (even cooperatively) despite it not having any interest in gratifying anything. It does not want to give you the desire for a new house and then conveniently provide the millions of things necessary to get one. No thought experiment will explain that away. Only freewill explains those billions and billions of intentional actions.

And I don't know what you mean with a world full of intent. Do you mean humans, or do you think that things like a galaxy or stones have intent?

I mean the ability to conceive a plan and then intentionally carry out the myriad of actions to achieve it. Determinism is even a bad explanation for the desire it's self but it is no explanation for the intent to carry it out, at all.

In the former case, I could say that we live in a world full of eyes/legs/noses/etc. as well, and determinism does not have any, either. That is hardly an annihilating proof against determinism. It is actually a non-sequitur as big as a house.

Your right but I was willing to rant determinism could bang together molecules in different variations just to have a debate at all. Determinism is a poor but possible explanation for the human eye, it is a pathetic explanation for our ability to repair it.

The question is: what makes you really single out the products of your brain's operations (love, desire, intent) from the products of, say, your immune system? What is so special about intent that makes you put it on a pedestal so impervious to rational analysis, if not your (possibly deterministic) desire to do so?

I am not, I granted that even love could be determined (I think it ridiculous but I granted it anyway). The problem is that determinism does not want to actualize love, we do. Determinism make my love another person but it is just as likely to produce an action like me jumping off a bridge, yelping like a coyote, killing the person I love, selling my children, invading Canada, or any other act an unintentionally agent might determine. It does not want to gratify any desire even if it could produce one.

Look I think your just not going to get this. I am only repeating myself at this point. Heck maybe your determined not to get it.

 

[1robin]

No, I am not a Christian, and I do not see the credibility in the Bible that you do. I gave my reasoning before the thread took the tangent.

Oh this was my mistake. I saw the word bible in your original first comment and misunderstood you to be saying that was your source. So we are back to your at least not having a source your willing to copy and paste. Please recalibrate taking into account my mistake and repost this adjusted accordingly. I ask this because I think my responses after this mistake assumed the mistake was true and so would not be applicable. Copy and paste what you can but adjust what needs to be and repost this please.

Depends on how "God" is defined, but again, that topic is much too broad to go into and we would be chasing shadows again here.




I don't believe in it. The irony is applicable.



Just wanting to tone things down. It's a highly emotionally charged topic, and then add a religious book to it all simply raises the bristle-factor. If you say you are not letting me off the hook for a particular debate topic or subtopic, that already places me on the defensive end and does little to further understanding between two diametrically opposed positions.

There is common ground SOMEWHERE. I'm open to finding it.



It most certainly is a women's lib issue.

Blacks historically were not granted the same rights because they had been biologically assumed to be on the level of chattel. No cognizance. No ability to feel pain. They could just work, and based off that assumption, they were denied the same rights as whites.

Because of these assumptions - including calling terminating a pregnancy "killing a child" - it's very easy to advocate for denying rights to a woman to decide what her uterus and her entire endocrine system, her entire cardiovascular system, her entire body is doing during a pregnancy.

Then we see rhetoric that so glibly says "once pregnant, a woman no longer owns her own body. It isn't hers anymore. It's nothing more than a house for another human being."

I've been pregnant twice. And, it's not an inconvenience, I'll tell you. It ineffaceably changes the entire body for life. I completely and totally deny that during pregnancy that I had no ownership...and my doctors will agree with me.

In their offices, I was the primary patient.



As do I. But where you and I demarcate "personhood" is where the problem lies.



Well, I need you to start somewhere else, since I do not share your views on the Bible nor it's relevance.

 

[1robin]

The source is the social contract between citizen and state in the United States. We all have this right in this country, but this is not the case everywhere. Bodily autonomy is expressly stated (by definition) in the constitutional amendment that ended slavery. No body, fully grown or not, has the right to demand the use of anyone else's body against their will.

So two people who have no rights to give anyone else get together and agree to assume rights into existence? I am glad this nation did not chose such an ambiguous foundation.

Look it is a trick question, you will never find an actual source for rights in anything natural because nature does not have rights to dispense. I was just trying to the you to discover that for your self. So it's a dead end no matter how you dress it up. However you are probably the best person to ask what the laws actually state. Can you paste the relevant laws concerned here.

 

[leibowde84]

So two people who have no rights to give anyone else get together and agree to assume rights into existence? I am glad this nation did not chose such an ambiguous foundation.

Look it is a trick question, you will never find an actual source for rights in anything natural because nature does not have rights to dispense. I was just trying to the you to discover that for your self. So it's a dead end no matter how you dress it up. However you are probably the best person to ask what the laws actually state. Can you paste the relevant laws concerned here.

It would be case law, not a statute, but sure ... give me some time and I'll find some relevant common law.

Rights only exist so far as a Government protects them. Remember we are talking about legal rights.

 

[1robin]

The accuracy/reliability of the Bible I guess. I think that you have a lot of assumptions about scholarly agreement that simply aren't true, but that is only because it contradicts what I have seen in the many lectures, debates, and books I have seen. But, I understand that a lot of this would be subjective in a way.

We are supposed to be debating the actual data behind my faith in the bible. We agreed to the data for step one and no force on earth seems to be able to persuade you to begin step two. You cannot reject my faith in scripture without knowing what it is based upon. Besides I said I won't debate biblical reliability in this haphazard fashion. We are going to go through it methodically and begin step two in the process or I will not debate it. No hard feelings but there is a method to this that if skipped makes any discussion meaningless. 2000 years of scholarship cannot be contained in a few one liners, declarations, and opinions.

 

[1robin]

It would be case law, not a statute, but sure ... give me some time and I'll find some relevant common law.

Rights only exist so far as a Government protects them. Remember we are talking about legal rights.

Well I wasn't, I was talking about actual rights inherent to a thing. It does not matter anyway because law merely assumes these right to exist. Laws don't even usually attempt to grant rights, they assume a right already exists and make rules to stop infringement upon them. IOW in general laws protect rights they do not rant them.

I would appreciate your efforts to find the actual laws that state what autonomy is and where it ends because that is where this whole issue is going to pivot.

 

[leibowde84]

We are supposed to be debating the actual data behind my faith in the bible. We agreed to the data for step one and no force on earth seems to be able to persuade you to begin step two. You cannot reject my faith in scripture without knowing what it is based upon. Besides I said I won't debate biblical reliability in this haphazard fashion. We are going to go through it methodically and begin step two in the process or I will not debate it. No hard feelings but there is a method to this that if skipped makes any discussion meaningless. 2000 years of scholarship cannot be contained in a few one liners, declarations, and opinions.

I'm not interested in the opinions of others no matter how scholarly they are. I'd like to explore why you think the Bible is infallible even though it was written by imperfect men who most likely did not even know the living Jesus. But I still don't understand what we agreed to in step one. But we've spent enough time on that. Let's move this over to a chat session though. We have gotten too far off topic.

 

[leibowde84]

Well I wasn't, I was talking about actual rights inherent to a thing. It does not matter anyway because law merely assumes these right to exist. Laws don't even usually attempt to grant rights, they assume a right already exists and make rules to stop infringement upon them. IOW in general laws protect rights they do not rant them.

I would appreciate your efforts to find the actual laws that state what autonomy is and where it ends because that is where this whole issue is going to pivot.

Sorry I haven't gotten a chance to get case citations quite yet, but you have to be reasonable in understanding how US Law works. Bodily autonomy is spoken of quite a lot, but the limits are only realized by studying multiple cases. Stay tuned on that though.

Also, what is the point of discussing your subjective view of what a "real" right is? This thread was only questioning the legal necessity of a woman's right to choose, as arguments based on compassion or empathy, while merited in their own rite, do not get us anywhere in the discussion of rights based on and defined by law.

Further, laws do create rights. Imagine if you lived in the IS and you weren't permitted to go to church. While here in the states your right to do this is expressly granted by law, that "right" does not exist in reality. Sure you can say the right should exist, but should implies that it isn't the case currently. I agree that the declaration claims to rights come from God, but that is yet another document written by imperfect men, and should not be a basis for proof of the supernatural. It was not meant to be interpreted as such.