How is abortion a states rights issue?

[bills217]

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You aren't very good at analogies. At all.

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I'm no pvn, but I'm better than dvaut and his professor and whoever came up with that pathological violinist analogy.

[DVaut1]

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*Again*...Passerby doesn't "randomly happen" upon Drowning Man. Well, he does, but he goes alot farther: he jumps into the water, completely of his own volition, and tries to give life-sustaining support to Drowning Man. Then he changes his mind.

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You are wrong here; that fact pattern almost always results in P being charged with a crime. Good Samaritan laws specifically exclude cases where somebody has already started giving aid and then withdraws it.

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I'm not sure if you're addressing me or not, but I never made a claim as to whether or not Passerby would or would not be charged with a crime. I think at least may have made an implicit claim Passerby would almost never be charged with murder, but I doubt that's a very contentious claim, unless you try to pull a bills and change the scenario such that Passerby instead pushes Drowning Man in the water.

I was attempting to elicit an answer from bills217 about the exact criminal nature of abortion. But as I said, bills decided he'd rather play the "lolz wow I don't understandz, a better analogy would be to change the scenario so that Passerby does something clearly aggressive and violent against Drowning Man, which is exactly like consensual heterosexual intercourse" card while simultaneously getting pretentious about his inane scenario. The old "if I hand-wavingly assert U R stupid, maybe I winz" strategy. This from a guy who once spent 30 posts in a thread pushing Intelligent Design and decrying evolutionary theory. Politics forum FTW

[DVaut1]

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That was the whole point of me pointing out that pregnancy wasn't a random occurrence, which you then agreed with me on and then accused me of positing a strawman. If that's the case, then why do you keep bringing up this scenario that YOU HAVE ALREADY AGREED has nothing to do with abortion

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Because it does pertain to abortion. In the scenario I laid out, there's a willful, conscious decision for a party to give their body up for the active, life-sustaining support of another life -- just as a woman ostensibly makes when she decides to have heterosexual vaginal intercourse with a man.

The question, is, then -- in the case of both a pregnant woman and the Passerby (and it's completely relevant and analogous): what kind of obligations has a party incurred by such a decision (which in my scenario is completely un-coerced...so we're not talking about rape here), and should the state enforce those obligations through force if necessary? And a related question: Given that the state may not be able to prevent the shirking of those duties ante-hoc, what kind of punishment should authorities hand out to those who choose (for whatever reason) to stop giving their life-sustaining support to dependent people?

You and other pro-lifers would apparently claim, lolz LDO, of course the state should prohibit abortions and punish those who have an abortion in the same manner they punish other murderers.

But given an analogous scenario (the Passerby hypothetical), most everyone who isn't rabidly anti-abortion aren't willing to throw Passerby in prison for life. Once we remove the demagoguery of abortion rhetoric via analogy (in an attempt to avoid the "omg won't someone please think of the babies, doctor will kill cute baby, women pay so much for an abortion, how we can allow cute baby to die, theyz so cuddly"), MOST people (at least in my experience) aren't comfortable punishing Passerby all that severely, even if they don't approve of his behavior.

*Maybe* I'm overstating how people react to the Passerby hypothetical -- I don't have any scientific polling to cite -- so I'm willing to listen if you think there's alot of people out there who want to hold Passerby culpable (in my hypothetical) in the same way they'd hold a murderer culpable.

But, you don't even seem comfortable punishing Passerby severely, in the same manner you'd punish a women who aborted her baby -- at least, so far, you've completely avoided answering the question. You'd prefer, instead, to change the scenario, claiming that it's more analogous to abortion when Passerby does something clearly aggressive like pushing the guy into the water (which would clearly obligate him to save the Drowning Man if capable).

[bills217]

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This from a guy who once spent 30 posts in a thread pushing Intelligent Design and decrying evolutionary theory.

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Yeah - you did a really crummy job arguing for what should have been a mortal lock 2-pager of a thread. You were the Charlie Weis of that thread. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bills217]

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Because it does pertain to abortion. In the scenario I laid out, there's a willful, conscious decision for a party to give their body up for the active, life-sustaining support of another life -- just as a woman ostensibly makes when she decides to have heterosexual vaginal intercourse with a man.

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Here are the differences between the hypothetical and an actual abortion scenario that cause it to break down and are the reasons I don't accept it as analogous, and I thought I had made this clear 5 times already, but maybe I haven't.

CRITICAL DIFFERENCE #1

In the Passerby hypothetical, Drowning Man is drowning whether Passerby happens upon him or not. He is already in a dangerous situation, and although we don't know how he got into it, we know Passerby didn't have anything to do with it. It is a random, uncaused occurrance (UNLIKE PREGNANCY).

In an abortion scenario, the only reason the fetus is in the dangerous situation (about to get cut into Fetus McNuggets) in the first place is because of the actions of Bob and Sue (or passerby, or whatever) - because they had sexual intercourse.

So, to recap - CRITICAL DIFFERENCE #1

Passerby scenario - Passerby is 0% culpable for Drowning Man being in a dangerous situation in the first place.

Actual abortion scenario - The biological parents are 100% culpable for the fetus being in a dangerous situation in the first place.

That is the first difference I tried to capture with my alteration of the original hypothetical, although apparently I failed.

CRITICAL DIFFERENCE #2

In the Passerby hypothetical, Drowning Man is, well, drowning. He is in immediate danger. No action on the part of Passerby = death for Drowning Man.

In an actual abortion scenario, the fetus is not in any immediate danger at all. It is following the same route every person who has ever lived has followed to becoming an adult. It is not in any way an immediately dangerous situation. No action on the part of Bob and Sue, instead of equaling certain death for the fetus, like the Passerby example, equals normal baby like every other - nature has a way of taking care of that part of the equation. The situation only becomes dangerous WHEN BOB AND SUE DECIDE TO ABORT!

So, to recap - CRITICAL DIFFERENCE #2

Passerby scenario - Drowning Man is already in a very dangerous situation before Passerby even becomes involved.

Actual abortion scenario - The fetus is actually not in a dangerous situation, at all, UNTIL and BECAUSE Bob and Sue get involved.

That is the second difference I tried to capture with my alteration of the original hypothetical, although apparently I failed.

I am not surprised at all by the answers that were given to that hypothetical that you described to me - I would have probably answered much like the rest of the students.

But abortion is not an analogous situation, with what I have laid out being the two most critical differences. Claiming that it is analogous becomes like every statist in this forum's defense of statism: it obfuscates and misdirects from the aggressive violence of the act in question.

I intentionally always refer back to the violence involved in the act of abortion for exactly this reason - just like the other ACists (pvn in particular) always refer back to the violence involved in statism.

It is not "emotional rhetoric." I do not have a lone tear running down my face as I type it. It is simply a factual description of what ACTUALLY HAPPENS, and it is both highly relevant and in many cases NEW, previously unknown, information for many people, though it may not be for you. (Aside: have you ever seen an abortion on video? Photos even?)

www.abortionno.org (Warning: photos/videos on this site are highly likely to elicit emotional responses, even though they are simply showing actual abortions.)

[bills217]

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You and other pro-lifers would apparently claim, lolz LDO, of course the state should prohibit abortions and punish those who have an abortion in the same manner they punish other murderers.

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FWIW, I have never heard one single PERSON, much less any reputable pro-life organization, claim they would desire to punish women who have abortions the same way murderers are punished. So you set up quite a strawman of your own there.

All the pro-life organizations I have dealt with want some punishment for the doctor (in normal conversation I do not refer to abortionists as doctors since doctors heal sick people and abortionists do not), but vary on the severity (though none desire punishment on par with how murderers are currently punished), and in many cases, want NO punishment for the mother (although I personally disagree - the mother is clearly culpable in addition to the abortionist).