[clue-talk] Whiny Bitches

[David L. Willson]

On Thu, 29 May 2008 13:54:26 -0600, Michael Fierro wrote
> On Thu May 29 2008 12:26:02 pm David L. Willson wrote:
> 
> > you also get rid of the rules saying that us air-breathers can't assault
> > one another when it's convenient to do so.  I'm all against special rights,
> > and all for equal rights.  That puts me in a strange and hard-to-align
> > political position
> 
> Those aren't really equal rights, though. Your position would take the right 
> to make medical conditions about her own body away from the mother. Or, to 
> look at it differently, the unborn baby's rights are more important than the 
> woman's rights. Which is definitely not equal.
> 
> There are at least two ways to view the rights issue regarding this: if you 
> believe than an unborn baby/fetus = a human, then you have to make a choice 
> about whose rights should take precedent, the mother's or the baby's. If you 
> view the fetus as part of the mother's body, then the choice should be very 
> straight-forward.

The fetus is a human child, distinct from his or her mother, but wholly enclosed within
her body.  Do you suppose that he or she is part of his or her mother's body?  If so,
why?  The mother's rights and the unborn's rights should be equal.  Do you suppose that
the unborn's right to life should be subordinate to his or her mother's right to
privacy?  If so, why?

> >From a legal point-of-view, though, I don't think it matters. Legally, it 
> comes down to a simple question: should the government have the right to 
> intrude on a person's medical decisions? And we already kinda know the answer 
> to that, since doctor-patient is recognized as a privileged relationship.
> 
> The way around this whole debate is, of course, to try to reduce the number of 
> abortions that need to be done. This means investing a lot of money into 
> realistic (i.e. not abstinence-only) sex education, and making birth control 
> methods easier to access (e.g. not fighting against Plan B).

What sort of education and prevention programs would have appealed to plantation owners,
do you think?  Faced with the loss of their family fortunes, and in many cases,
realistic fears about basic financial stability, what do you think would have convinced
them that infringing on the rights of another is not an acceptable cost to insure their
own security?  How might we have averted the civil war, and still achieved abolition,
through education and programs?

-- David

abolish abortion