Political Crossfire Forums

[Selfish_Meme]

The Social Contract of Abortion

Introduction.

Amendment 13 of the Constitution of the United States.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Slavery can be simply defined as ownership of a person. The constitution of the United States expressly forbids it. Your person is your property, and you can't even sell it! You do not own your child and an embryo cannot own you nor any part of you.

Amendment 14 of the Constitution of the United States
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

According to Section 1 of Amendment 14, where it says 'All persons born or naturalized', an embryo is not a citizen of the United States and cannot partake of the inherent rights granted to a citizen. It also states that a 'person' can be deprived of life, liberty or property as long as due process of law is followed.

When a new human life is conceived it is an opportunistic interloper. While the host is unaware of its existence it has begun living in someone else's property. In property law this is called 'squatting' and the rights of the 'squatter' increase the longer they stay on the property. Another sort of tenant lives on someone else's property at the wish of the owner. Whenever either sort of tenancy starts a contract is entered into, even if it is not written on paper. Individual countries have different laws and as times have changed the laws and rights of tenants and landlords have changed as well.

When there was little or no recourse to an official removal of an unwanted tenant, property owners were licensed to use force in the application of their property rights. Currently at our state of technology there is no recourse to remove an unwanted human life from the host without the probable death of that life.

The host has absolute rights to their property(body) at least at the beginning. In the case of squatters when they have lived on a property long enough they gain some rights to the use of that property. In fact in the UK at least after 12 years of adverse possession they acquire possessory title. You cannot evict a squatter without a court order and you must apply for that within 28 days of becoming aware of the squatter. Otherwise the judge can take into consideration that you should have known about the adverse possession and he can decide whether the property was abandoned for use. In the US it is harder to squat, as the property laws are much stricter but you nearly always have to get official help to evict squatters for trespassing or loitering.

When a new host (mother) is made aware of their new tenant(embryo) they must decide on a contract or evict (abortion). Their right to choose is constitutionally protected as shown above while the embryos is not. There are actually a lot of analogies between pregnancy and property law. It is a social contract between mother and embryo, or landlord and tenant. When and if the technology becomes available to separate a mother and her embryo without posing a life threatening risk to both, then abortion should become illegal just as shooting a trespasser has become illegal now because there are better more official alternatives to using force on a trespasser.

One aspect of the above that seems important is undergoing a due process of law to terminate a life as stated in amendment 14. Abortions should be granted by legal means. It could be as simple as signing a document in front of a Justice of the Peace. Maybe also indicating that you have been provided with the properly authorized information on abortion.

The other aspect is the increased rights of an embryo once it is known to exist. If an abortion is not undertaken forthwith then the embryo can be said to have entered into a tenancy contract with the mother. The longer that tenancy is the harder it should be to evict.

Summary
An embryo can in many ways be considered an illegal foreign squatter, without citizenship rights, while the mother should have the equivalent property rights of a wild west United States Citizen Homesteader. She should be able to use force to evict the trespasser. Constitutionally the embryo can be terminated after due legal course.

Supporting Evidence
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/squatters.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatter

The Selfish Meme: February 2006

[The Grandmaster]

This is an impressive and fantastic post Meme. Well done. I agree wholeheartedly. :clap:

[galba]

The fetus didn't choose to exist, or infring on anyone's rights. Why do you pin the blame on him/her?

[The Grandmaster]

galba wrote: The fetus didn't choose to exist, or infring on anyone's rights. Why do you pin the blame on him/her?

1)Of course it didn’t choose, because things that aren’t people don’t choose anything.

2)If you don’t see using another person’s body against their will as a violation of rights, then you have a strange view of what rights are.

[Selfish_Meme]

galba wrote: The fetus didn't choose to exist, or infring on anyone's rights. Why do you pin the blame on him/her?

I am not pinning the blame on anyone. I think the embryo does have a right to exist, this whole peice was about describing the relationship between mother and embryo in a legal manner.

I contend that like a landlord in property law the mother must determine whether there are terms under which the tenant or fetus can stay. If she doesn't do anything but is aware of the tenant or fetus, then like property law the embryo starts to gain more rights to the property of her womb. A social contract exists. Eventually the embryo has more rights to her womb than she does and she can't abort it anymore.

[jsmcs73]

I believe that is the SICKEST argument I've ever heard!!!!

Little miss selfish meme, allow me to enlighten you. An individuals choice to engage in sex is how pregnancy occures everyone knows that!

A fetus dosn't just show up one day and climb into a womans womb and squat there as you suggest, but rather is INVITED by the womans choice to engage in sex, with ample knowlege that sex CAUSES pregnancy.

Your argument is filled with cop-outs.

And please don't try to twist the constitution, and suggest that it would ever condone the MURDER of sweet little children.

Our law are supposed to protect children.....our prodigy.

[Selfish_Meme]

jsmcs73 wrote: I believe that is the SICKEST argument I've ever heard!!!!

Little miss selfish meme, allow me to enlighten you. An individuals choice to engage in sex is how pregnancy occures everyone knows that!

A fetus dosn't just show up one day and climb into a womans womb and squat there as you suggest, but rather is INVITED by the womans choice to engage in sex, with ample knowlege that sex CAUSES pregnancy.

Your argument is filled with cop-outs.

And please don't try to twist the constitution, and suggest that it would ever condone the MURDER of sweet little children.

Our law are supposed to protect children.....our prodigy.

You have a right to your opinion of course, and to phrase it however you like. However be aware that attacking me does not refute my arguments or make you right. It is also against the policies of this forum.

I have sex all the time without the express purpose of conceiving a baby. I would say because conception statistics show that only 7% of women of child bearing age concieve each year and most adults on average have sex twice a week that the sex act is performed 26 billion times to produce 1.75 million babies that there are whole lot of other people doing the same thing. So by those statistics since a woman has a 1 in 1487 chance of falling pregnant it isn't even likely.

I am not twisting the constitution, if you can show exactly where I did that?....

There are laws to protect children and i wholeheartedly agree with them, children however have been born, and an embryo has not.

[jsmcs73]

You are twisting the constitution to suite your argument and point of view.

Regardless of the intent behind the act of sex by an individual it is the primary way in which one INVITES pregnancy, intentional or not.

I am not attacking you at all. I am attacking your argument as obsurd. If thats agianst the rules of this forum then report me to an admin. and get me kicked off.

I believe that abortion is a social SICKNESS. And that the constitution clearly indicates that the rights afforded there apply to our prodigy(unborn children) as well as us.

Peace.

[Selfish_Meme]

jsmcs73 wrote: Little miss selfish meme
This not a personal attack then?

jsmcs73 wrote:
You are twisting the constitution to suite your argument and point of view.
Saying so doesn't make it so. Where exactly did I mis-state what the constitution says?

jsmcs73 wrote:
Regardless of the intent behind the act of sex by an individual it is the primary way in which one INVITES pregnancy, intentional or not.
But not the only reason to have sex, so to have sex is not always to invite pregnancy, even if it is the primary way. It is also one primary way to develop closeness in a relationship, to show love and interest. It can also be a primary form of monetary transaction in some cases.

jsmcs73 wrote: I am not attacking you at all.
See the first point. I have reported it, whether you get kicked off or not is not my decision.

jsmcs73 wrote: I am attacking your argument as obsurd.
You are not attacking my argument, you are attacking my 'position'.

jsmcs73 wrote:
I believe that abortion is a social SICKNESS. And that the constitution clearly indicates that the rights afforded there apply to our prodigy(unborn children) as well as us.

As I said, you do have a right to your opinion, but your opinion is not proof. Show us where in the constitution it says that unborn embryos are protected in such a way that they cannot be killed legally.

[jimison1]

As many of the arguments, in law, ethics, and in this forum in favor of abortion seem to rest on the concept of moral/metaphysical personhood, it seems appropriate for you to provide us with a clear and rigorous definition of the term. Please demonstrate how the concept of personhood might be a natural kind. A concept that can be pointed to. Placed in an appropriate taxonomy. A concept that can be inferred or deduced from some scientific or logical fact, postulate, or theory. Please illuminate for those of us who are a bit unsure of what immovable characteristics are necessary to observe in determining the meaning and referent of the concept of personhood. As it is clear that if we are to come to any agreement concerning what is moral with regard to the permissibility of abortion, assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that is our aim to come to an agreement/understanding of what is moral, we must first all understand the meaning of the terms we use to justify our laws and behaviors (esp. when life is concerned).

Best regards,

Jimison

[Prole]

Welcome to the forum, jsmcs73.

As far as abortion's constitutionality, I see no problem with Meme's logic, and your use of rhetoric without any legal backing does nothing to dispute it either. In fact, the very fact that you have to resort to an appeal to emotion apparently shows the opposite; that you have no legal ground to stand upon.

Furthermore, there is a difference between and intended consequence and a possible consequence; the former encompasses all of the latter, but the reverse is not true. In sex, pregnancy is always a possible consequence, and while measures can be taken to reduce this possibility, it always remains to at least some minute degree. Then again, physical injury is also a possible result of sex. Is it an intention? Methinks not (in most cases, at least). Is someone "inviting" injury when they have sex?

Meme wrote: I would say because conception statistics show that only 7% of women of child bearing age concieve each year and most adults on average have sex twice a week that the sex act is performed 26 billion times to produce 1.75 million babies that there are whole lot of other people doing the same thing. So by those statistics since a woman has a 1 in 1487 chance of falling pregnant it isn't even likely.
Nice math (source, btw?), but you also should factor in that a fair amount of coneptions end in miscarriage (about 30%, I think) and a fair amount of those end in abortion (around 25%). Taking these factors into account, even though there are 1.75 million babies born annually, there are probably somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million conceptions annually.

Of course, when you factor in that people typically take measures to either reduce or increase their chances of conceiving beyond the average chances of conception, a lot of this doesn't mean much by itself.

[jimison1]

Forgive me, I just noticed a discussion basically taking the form of the Thompson's �Violinist� or �People Seeds� justification of abortion. However, and please extend to me a bit of forgiveness if my statement seems or is bromidic and unimaginative, but wouldn't the analogy, following the convention rules of constructing meaningful analogies, not hold? In the hypothetical examples offered by Jarvis-Thompson, and by you Meme, the conditions in which the landlord finds herself are not the result of random, unknown, uncertain, or unwanted causes. They are the result of her actions. In other words, these arguments from analogy seem only to hold in cases of rape or incest, and not in cases of abortion on demand.

Best,

Jimison

[Selfish_Meme]

Prole wrote: Meme wrote: I would say because conception statistics show that only 7% of women of child bearing age concieve each year and most adults on average have sex twice a week that the sex act is performed 26 billion times to produce 1.75 million babies that there are whole lot of other people doing the same thing. So by those statistics since a woman has a 1 in 1487 chance of falling pregnant it isn't even likely.
Nice math (source, btw?), but you also should factor in that a fair amount of coneptions end in miscarriage (about 30%, I think) and a fair amount of those end in abortion (around 25%). Taking these factors into account, even though there are 1.75 million babies born annually, there are probably somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million conceptions annually.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/hsq1104.pdf

no I didn't take into account any other factors, they would have just emphasised the few babies that are produced from sex anyway.

[Selfish_Meme]

jimison1 wrote: Forgive me, I just noticed a discussion basically taking the form of the Thompson's �Violinist� or �People Seeds� justification of abortion. However, and please extend to me a bit of forgiveness if my statement seems or is bromidic and unimaginative, but wouldn't the analogy, following the convention rules of constructing meaningful analogies, not hold? In the hypothetical examples offered by Jarvis-Thompson, and by you Meme, the conditions in which the landlord finds herself are not the result of random, unknown, uncertain, or unwanted causes. They are the result of her actions. In other words, these arguments from analogy seem only to hold in cases of rape or incest, and not in cases of abortion on demand.

Best,

Jimison

Really? someone else thought of it too, I'm not that surprised I suppose.

I am not familiar with the rules you mention, but I guess I will have to become so.

I would say the analogy still holds if she used contraception, because she did not intend to get pregnant. Therefore introducing the uncertainty and randomness. If a condom broke and she took the morning after pill she would still have not intended to get pregnant.

Also a property owner is not unaware of the dangers if he leaves his property disused for too long, strengthening the analogy.

They analogy wouldn't hold in incest unless it could be proved she had not taken part voluntarily.

[Selfish_Meme]

jimison1 wrote: As many of the arguments, in law, ethics, and in this forum in favor of abortion seem to rest on the concept of moral/metaphysical personhood, it seems appropriate for you to provide us with a clear and rigorous definition of the term. Please demonstrate how the concept of personhood might be a natural kind. A concept that can be pointed to. Placed in an appropriate taxonomy. A concept that can be inferred or deduced from some scientific or logical fact, postulate, or theory. Please illuminate for those of us who are a bit unsure of what immovable characteristics are necessary to observe in determining the meaning and referent of the concept of personhood. As it is clear that if we are to come to any agreement concerning what is moral with regard to the permissibility of abortion, assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that is our aim to come to an agreement/understanding of what is moral, we must first all understand the meaning of the terms we use to justify our laws and behaviors (esp. when life is concerned).

Best regards,

Jimison

You have a complex turn of phrase Jimison, I have to read everything carefully. ;)

I did not define 'person' or 'personhood' because the constitution didn't. I am only arguing the consequences of what is in the constitution. It makes the assumption of what a person is not me.

[jimison1]

Rules of analogy (a good place to start): http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:LTr2776uzKUJ:www.cs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/ijcai87-analogy.ps+philosophical+rules+of+analogy&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10&client=flock

Yes, but she still engaged in the behavior that brought her to the state in which she finds herself. She also knew that contraception has a failure rate, an expressed risk, and engaged in the behaviors anyway. Awaking to find that you've been hooked up to a Violinist - who is now dependent on your vital functions for his existence - when in hospital for minor surgery isn't generally considered an expressed or implied risk. Finding people seeds scattered about your bedset or property, likewise, is not a situation in which there is implied or expressed risk, and in which the behaviors, engaged in by the volition rather than by random chance, accident, or coercion, are known to produce issue. The similarities are superficial at best.

Regarding the lack of awareness of particular threats disuse of his property might foment, he is still aware of some potential threat to the integrity of his property, and that is why, presumably, if he is wise he'd lock the doors and windows, and may, if unusually prudent, even go so far as to have a security system installed. Even if he does lock the doors and windows, installs the security system, and a burglar gets in, he is still liable (not in the sense that he caused the burglary) for his property. However, this analogy, and I feel I've been more than charitable in its rendering, would really only hold if the property owner invited someone to break into his property, which is not the case in your or my articulation.

Regarding property rights by way of positive law extended to body sovereignty, I'd have no problem with this analogy if the fetus were in fact part of the women's body. A freshman course in biology or physical anthropology would convince most otherwise. A fetus is an organism by biological taxonomy, distinct from, however dependent he might be, from the mother's body. He has his own genotype, phenotype, and by 5-8 weeks is taxonomically human (H. sapien sapien). It would appear then, forgive my awkward attempt at forum convention, by analogy that a fetus is no more part of a woman's body than a great white shark is part of the ocean.

Regarding incest and the analogy not holding, I think we can assume that most woman do not want to be the object of their fathers, uncles, cousins, or brothers desires for sexual congress. But of course, you're now arguing against the analogy used in defense of your position. If this is a new tactic in argument, I've fallen right into your trap. Well done. You win, the analogy doesn't hold.

Best,

Jimison

[jimison1]

Meme,

Forgive me, I write philosophy essays for a living, if one can call being a student 'living,' and my turns of phrase are not meant to obfuscate or by way of eristic device trap or lead you to an answer by my design. I, quite simply, believe that if a concept is going to be used as justification to take life, we had better have a good definition of that concept. To date, I have not seen a rigorous defintion, there is no widely accepted conventional definition (Dennet's seems to be enjoying some popularity, but still, there seems no meaningful consensus at present), a rigid constitutional definition really isn't offered in the body of the constitution, and Roe and other rulings have based their usage on definitions provided by the philosophical community (which again, there are no hard and fast definitions). In other words, the moral and legal justification of abortion rests, at present, on an eidolon, a set of Wittgenstenian family resemblances, second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit, and what appears to be an ad hoc hypothesis. I thought that perhaps you, obviously conversant in the matter, may have been able to offer a more rigorous definition of which I either wasn't aware from some other source, or the product of your own understanding and cathexis.

Best regards,

Jimison

[jimison1]

I'm such a dolt. In looking over my post before last I noticed that I committed a solecism, which is likely to happen when one types faster than one thinks. I neglected the proper use of possession (father's, uncle's, etc.). Sorry.

J

[Selfish_Meme]

jimison1 wrote: Rules of analogy (a good place to start): http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:LTr2776uzKUJ:www.cs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/ijcai87-analogy.ps+philosophical+rules+of+analogy&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10&client=flock

Yes, but she still engaged in the behavior that brought her to the state in which she finds herself. She also knew that contraception has a failure rate, an expressed risk, and engaged in the behaviors anyway. Awaking to find that you've been hooked up to a Violinist - who is now dependent on your vital functions for his existence - when in hospital for minor surgery isn't generally considered an expressed or implied risk. Finding people seeds scattered about your bedset or property, likewise, is not a situation in which there is implied or expressed risk, and in which the behaviors, engaged in by the volition rather than by random chance, accident, or coercion, are known to produce issue. The similarities are superficial at best.
So if we engage in risky endevours we deserve any unwanted consequences. I had better not get out of bed in the morning otherwise I might get hit by a car, fired, or wait if i stay in bed I might die of bed sores...no that doesn't make any sense at all. A woman who engages in sex isn't necessarily inviting pregnancy, so the results of it may not be to her liking and she would be morally correct in not wanting them.

jimison1 wrote:
Regarding the lack of awareness of particular threats disuse of his property might foment, he is still aware of some potential threat to the integrity of his property, and that is why, presumably, if he is wise he'd lock the doors and windows, and may, if unusually prudent, even go so far as to have a security system installed. Even if he does lock the doors and windows, installs the security system, and a burglar gets in, he is still liable (not in the sense that he caused the burglary) for his property. However, this analogy, and I feel I've been more than charitable in its rendering, would really only hold if the property owner invited someone to break into his property, which is not the case in your or my articulation.

I think you went backwards here, I was arguing he IS aware of the threats to his property. According to the above though engaging in a risky activity does not make him deserving of bad consequences if he took reasonable precautions.

jimison1 wrote:
Regarding property rights by way of positive law extended to body sovereignty, I'd have no problem with this analogy if the fetus were in fact part of the women's body. A freshman course in biology or physical anthropology would convince most otherwise. A fetus is an organism by biological taxonomy, distinct from, however dependent he might be, from the mother's body. He has his own genotype, phenotype, and by 5-8 weeks is taxonomically human (H. sapien sapien). It would appear then, forgive my awkward attempt at forum convention, by analogy that a fetus is no more part of a woman's body than a great white shark is part of the ocean.
I never made the claim that an embryo was a part of her body, in fact I was distinctly making the claim that it was a whole other living thing.

jimison1 wrote:
Regarding incest and the analogy not holding, I think we can assume that most woman do not want to be the object of their fathers, uncles, cousins, or brothers desires for sexual congress. But of course, you're now arguing against the analogy used in defense of your position. If this is a new tactic in argument, I've fallen right into your trap. Well done. You win, the analogy doesn't hold.
I'm not going to presuppose that anybody wants anything, and neither should you I would think.

[Prole]

Welcome to PCF, jimison1.

jimison1 wrote: Regarding property rights by way of positive law extended to body sovereignty, I'd have no problem with this analogy if the fetus were in fact part of the women's body. A freshman course in biology or physical anthropology would convince most otherwise. A fetus is an organism by biological taxonomy, distinct from, however dependent he might be, from the mother's body. He has his own genotype, phenotype, and by 5-8 weeks is taxonomically human (H. sapien sapien). It would appear then, forgive my awkward attempt at forum convention, by analogy that a fetus is no more part of a woman's body than a great white shark is part of the ocean.
The same is true of a tumor, excepting that it is not (nor will ever be) a homo sapien. Whether or not a preborn human (or a tumor) is part of a woman is debatable, but what is true is that it exists within and dependent upon her. It may not be a part of her, but it is completely dependent upon her. And frankly, satisfying its needs for existence is not something that many women wish to do, and with good reason.

Regarding your final self-critiquing post, minor spelling and grammatical errors are tolerable; we're here to discuss ideas, not nitpick on superficial mistakes. And as long as said mistakes aren't so huge as to make posts incomprehensible (which your's was not), it's not worth fretting over. Furthermore, you can edit your posts by clicking the "edit" button over the post, and thus keep your appearance of flawlessness intact.

It has helped me numerous times, and is one of the many reasons why I get frequent requests from religious leaders to become their messiah. :wink: