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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (21345)	7/19/2005 2:17:06 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Sorry. I didn't know we were limited to those two points of discussion until they were resolved. I was just responding to ideas that were presented. By all means, let's get back on that treadmill. ;-)

To: one_less who wrote (21345)	7/20/2005 2:18:37 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

"So far, among the few participants here, we have not been able to support the original assumptions as factual or rational, in the sense that sound reasoning may bring agreement among our group" Most of the "group" rely on reasoning only to the point where it would logically impair a religious belief. Thus, there will be no agreement other than between those whom allow reason a penultimate claim. Atheists and agnostics have that capacity. Personhood is not biologically defined. The argument as to when a group of cells has human DNA is interesting but not relevant to the question of rights. Rights attach to legal human beings. As legal rights rest upon the foundation of "inalienable" rights--legal personhood may only be (logically) granted when inalienable rights may (logically) exist. Inalienable rights (of humans) may logically exist when two conditions are fulfilled: 1). The entity is genetically of human classification, and 2). the entity is not physically intertwined with the body of another for life support. It is absurd to hypothesize that both the mother and the baby have the rights to act in their own self interest because what happens to the one happens to both. As only one of the two has a self interest, it is this one who also has the rights. Neither you nor I can act as proxy for the absence of a self interest in the zygote or fetus because we would be violating the fundamental rights of the woman. I may value your liver and even desire it for myself (because it has "human" DNA that I could perhaps use to prolong my life)--but I cannot forcibly remove it without violating your rights; nor can I force you to nourish it in any particular way. You have the right to drink yourself to death--just as a woman does. If the zygote had legal rights she (of course) COULD be forcibly confined and prevented from harming the zygote. This would be moral, legal, and (indeed) a social duty where the woman fails to voluntarily refrain from harming the fetus. So you either support not recognizing the rights of the woman, or you accept that the zygote/fetus can have no rights while attached to her body. Keep in mind that standing firm for human rights is in no way incompatible with opposing abortion or advocating birth control. One does not sanitize abortion simply by advocating human rights. One can support human rights AND encourage abortions. One can support human rights AND discourage abortions. One can support human rights AND have no feeling or conviction about abortion. Or one can simply sneer at "human rights". In any event the right to abortion IS about the right to live and to act as an entity. A pregnant woman either has a right to what is in her body and how she treats her body--or she does not.