Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (229993)	4/19/2005 4:35:30 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573824

The argument he is making is the one related to the right to privacy to do what we want to our own bodies. The argument he is making is a lot more sophisticated than that. You don't have the right to do what you want with your own body. You don't have the right to punch me in the nose, or trespass on my property. You don't have the legal right (whether or not you have the natural right) to take certain forms of drugs or to have sex with someone in exchange for money. The violinist argument is not new, I've heard it years ago, but it is one of the best pro-choice arguments out there. Its much stronger and more sophisticated than just "we have the right to do what we want with out bodies". If you say "I have the right to do what I want with my body", the pro-life side says "the unborn child has its own body and you have no right to harm it". Rather than just saying "no it does not", the violinist argument is an attempt to say that even if we accept this principle it doesn't matter. That even if a fetus is a human being with natural rights that doesn't mean we should not let his or her mother have an abortion. After all the violinist is also a human being with natural (and legal) rights. The analogy works fairly well when dealing with abortion when the pregnancy is the result of rape. The violinist may be innocent of any wrong doing in this situation, and the violinist is dependent on someone else's body, but many people, even many pro-life people would not agree that the person who the violinist is attached to should be required to support the violinist with their body for the next 9 months. Where the analogy breaks down is when you consider the fact that the vast majority of pregnancies ended by abortion where not the result of rape. If a woman willingly has sex she takes the risk that she might create a life that is dependent on her. It would be as if you gave the violinist the fatal kidney ailment. Then he would have a better claim on your support. A more minor break down is the fact that having a full blown adult attached to you for 9 months is more inconvenient than a normal pregnancy but this break down is not enough IMO to invalidate the analogy. The fact that most pregnant women have responsibility for their condition is (at least for those women, as I said the analogy doesn't break down too much for rape victims). Tim