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To: thoughtomator
How to "compel" liberty? I choose the womans freedom over a states compulsory 'laws'.. In fact, I contend the state has been given no power to compel in this issue.

Prohibition and compulsion are two separate things. Compel means 'to force [to do something]'. Prohbit means 'to prevent [from doing something]'. There is nothing that I would force anyone to do.

Your hoped for unconstitutional 'laws' would force women to term in unintended pregnancies.

I would forbid - not compel - any person to kill their child, absent the previously granted condition of genuine self-defense from grievous injury or death.

Killing a child, murder, ~is~ already forbidden everywhere in the US. Early term abortion is not the murder of a 'child'.

It does not compel anyone to do anything; if nothing at all is done, the child lives, and I will be perfectly satisfied with that. The child can be adopted the day of birth, for all I would care, as long as no person deliberately terminated the child's existence. You might say that I would 'compel' the woman to carry the child,

Yep, you advocate that government compel others in order to be "satisfied with that".

but that is incorrect; the sequence that creates life is not compelled, but it has already begun. Human beings start as a bunch of cells. That bunch of cells is nevertheless a unique human life at the very beginning of its journey.

Not at issue.

I won't even begin to engage in the cynical game of measuring viability. How would you appreciate someone evaluating whether it is convenient to have you live? This is a human life we are talking about.

Cynical emotional appeal

I do begin to see the difference in our basic assumptions. I believe that liberty, far from being a mere political system, is actually built in to the very constitution and definition of a human being. The yearning for liberty is contained even within those few cells, waiting to be expressed. Man is meant to be free - is this not universally accepted among libertarians?

Liberty is indeed built into our Constitution. - Even for a pregnant woman.

She retains all rights to her & her/childs body.

Can you not see the parallel to slavery? This statement says that one human owns another human being.

She does own that life within her. It is an inseparable part of her till viability.

I believe that, in the future, abortion will be viewed by historians with equal horror as is held now about the practice of slavery. I cannot see this as compatible with any tenet of libertarianism. In what other case does a libertarian say someone owns someone else?

Pregnancy is a unique case.

Regarding the Supreme Court's definitions:

I'll settle for the definition of viablity our USSC uses.

Well, this is an authority that you are relying on. I doubt very many libertarians really approve of the recent record of the Supreme Court, however. They approve of the War on Drugs, they approved of government bodies deciding between equal citizens on the basis of race... this is not a record of perfect libertarianism that one can take as authority.

'Viablity' stands as a valid term in the issue.

"It is morally criminal because it is murder." I stand by that. Moral means behavior which favors survival; this is the purpose of moral codes. One need not accept a moral code to value survival. (This is why we have the words immoral, to describe behavior that favors death, and amoral, which is behavior indifferent to survival, rather than just one antonym for 'moral'.) Respecting life, noting that a man cannot take another man's life, this is different qualitatively than declaring Sharia and lopping off heads (the phantom strawman you imply lurks in the background). I do not rely on the authority of any code or counsel, but offer a reasonable explanation about why a person that values liberty should abhor abortion.

You would impose your moral code on others, in the name of liberty..

If it is I that is authoritarian, what then is the authority that I have relied upon to you in making this case?

Your Gods? Your inate moral superiority? You tell me..

(You have relied on the Supreme Court, a dubious candidate at best;

Nope, I rely on our constitution. Pregnant women have liberties. Early term abortion is one of their liberties.

remove the possiblity of impeachment and they would wield an absolute dicatorship. This is by definition authoritarian.)

Do you really think that if the USSC ruled our RKBA's is NOT an individual right, and the government backed them, that the people of the US would bow to this 'dictatorship'? Get a grip.

46 posted on 09/29/2003 8:25:53 AM PDT by tpaine ( I'm trying to be Mr Nice Guy, but politics keep getting in me way. ArnieRino for Governator)
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To: tpaine; thoughtomator; MayDay72; GsYBE; TimWhitworth; GovernmentShrinker
All of these questions are answered by Doris Gordon and the other authors on Libertarians for Life
http://www.l4l.org/library/index.html

People who dig holes may not kill other people who break their legs falling into those holes.

Human life begins at fertilization by scientific and taxonomic criteria.
Even unintended actions have consequences. Even if you try to watch for other cars when you run a red light, you are responsible for any harm you do.
The unborn child is created by the biological actions of the mother and the father.
If the mother was not a willing participant in sex, she has a claim against the father, not the child.
If the pregnancy results due to failure of contraceptives, the child is still not an aggressor against the mother.


The child did not create himself or herself. The child did not and does not aggress against the mother by gestating in her uterus, where she put him or her even if by accident or because of failure of contraception.

The right to life - not to be killed - does not vary according to any subjective valuing of human beings. Either all humans have the right not to be killed by an act of aggression of another, or no humans have the right to life.


The mother is not being forced to become pregnant if abortion is outlawed. She is forbidden by society to infringe the right to life of the child that she has created in a helpless, dependent state.
She is responsible for the care of the child until she can arrange for someone else to voluntarily care for the child.

Life is not fair. The mother-child relationship is more immediate than the father-child relationship until the child is born. That does not mean that the mother may kill her child.
48 posted on 09/29/2003 11:02:13 PM PDT by hocndoc (Choice is the # 1 killer in the US)
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To: tpaine
I see that we will end up disagreeing based on our differing concepts of when and how a human being is invested with rights. I thank you nevertheless for engaging in this discussion, as it is most refreshing to talk about the issue without the Left-Marxist social engineering point of view distorting everything.
67 posted on 09/30/2003 8:05:47 AM PDT by thoughtomator (Right Wing Crazy #5338526)
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