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>> >> Strawman writes: "A woman's body is not Collective property. It is private
>> >> property. And unless she has agreed to contract otherwise, she has a right to
>> >> dissociate with other bodies. Including the body of an unborn foetus." >> Couldn't it be argued that the women did voluntarily agree to organically
>> connect her body to the body of a foetus in that she had sex with full
>> knowledge of the potential consequences of sex. Whether she knew that the risk existed is not relevant. A woman who gets in a
car full of Lebanese in Western Sydney should be aware of the risk she is
taking too. That does not excuse raping her. >> Certainly, it is hard to accept
>> that it was the foetus that chose to be connected. No one said it was. >> To use a direct property rights analogy. If I were on your property, you have
>> the right to ask me to leave. If I refuse, you may use reasonable force to
>> remove me. If the only way of moving me is to kill me, then so be it. However,
>> what if you knocked me out, dragged me onto your property, and then asked me to
>> leave while I was still unconscious? Would you then have the right to shoot me? I am entitled to use all necessary force to bar or remove you. I have no
obligation to house or feed you just because you turn up on my doorstep
cold and hungry. >> Further, I note something of which you're are undoubtably aware... and that is
>> that your argument is deontelogical and does not have any consideration for
>> maximising utility. While I don't necessarily want to push the utilitarian
>> barrow here... a utilitarian who believed that life started at conception is
>> not likely to be convinced by your argument. A utilitarian argument could
>> suggest that 20 weeks of inconvenience for 100,000 people is an acceptable
>> price to pay to save the lives of 100,000 people. It depends on how you define utility. If aborting every unwanted child meant
the birth of another child who was wanted and loved, then abortion would be
utility maximizing. There are other intractable questions here about utility and life. Is the life
a technically brain dead Palestinian leader (to pick a random example) worth
less than that of a healthy 10 year old child in an affluent country? Do we
measure utility merely in life-years, or do we multiply that by the quality of
life? If you kill someone in their sleep (and they just never wake up), is that
better than letting them know you are about to shoot them? Or making them sit
there as you crash their hijacked airplane into a tall building? I don't have the answer to these questions, but the utility argument is on a
very slippery slope in the case of abortion. The private rights argument is
not.
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