If someone is unable to act to promote their own safety (and obviously the fetus is not)
All moral questions begin with interest. Something needs to matter before right or wrong becomes a question. As a fetus I had no interest; I had no moral judgment; I had no reason--no reason to live, no reason to die. Nothing mattered to me; Not then--not before then. The interest was on the part of others--in particular my mother.
A foetus is not someone, and a fetus has no interest. It is your interest we have been talking about here. What happens in a woman's body matters to you, not to the fetus. However, your interest does not have any moral weight against the interest of the mother in her own body, in her own freedom, AND in her own fetus. In an ideal society, we would not be insinuating to our citizenry that their RIGHT to life, and freedom to their own body, was only a thin thread of indulgence from the ruling committee, and in danger of being revoked at any moment.
The mother cares far more for her fetus than you ever could, and the choices she must make matter far more to her than they do to you. I don't mean that you are uncaring in the sense of concern; Only that your interest in the matter is an intrusive one--as is mine.
Someone earlier mentioned that they believed they had been granted Dominion (sovereignty, absolute rule) over everything. I don't know what you believe, but this belief would certainly justify ripping out a fetus and letting the mother die; And perhaps someday our society will value youth so highly that this will seem justifiable.
It is amazing what can be justified once fundamental RIGHTS are fractured. For example, if a woman could be forced to donate her bone marrow, etc. to a foetus...I see absolutely no reason why you cannot be forced to give me a kidney, or a lung. I ought to have a far greater claim than an entity that has no self interest--especially If I have demonstrated math skills or dancing ability or something. All society needs to do is declare a "right" for me. |
