Oct
23
One’s right to live-which means: to possess one’s own body is impossible in a society where aggression is a rule। If freedom to aggress is accepted as a rule, most of us would have a hard time holding on to own ones own property–And one’s own body is the most important of ones possessions. Most thinkers and philosophers, though not opposed to the above argument, usually attempts to rationalize abortions by trying to fit it into some moral framework.
The most cited argument is as follows- “A child, yet to be born is just a potential newborn child. It has no reasoning power and resides in the mother’s body. It can have no rights at all.” A newly born child too lacks reasoning power, is incapable of most actions & is dependent on his parents. It is only that it has the power to acquire those skills-In the similar manner a potential new born child is capable to grow into a born child. If a newly born child has the right to his life as it is a potential adult, why is it that an unborn child, which is a potential newly born child doesn’t have it? Needless to mention, the argument contradicts itself.
Let’s hear what the Brilliant Economist, Scholar, Historian, Moral Philosopher & Anarcho-Capitalist, Professor Murray Newton Rothbard has to say on this topic: “Most fetuses are in the mother’s body by the mother’s freely-granted consent. But should the mother decide that she does not want the fetus there any longer, then the fetus becomes a parasitic “invader” of her person, and the mother has the perfect right to expel this invader from her domain. Abortion should be looked upon, not as “murder” of a living person, but as the expulsion of an unwanted invader from the mother’s body.” Murray they go on to argue that a mere promise is not a legal contract & one can’t have any legally enforceable contract with an unborn child.
I’ll draw an analogy to refute the above argument। Let’s assume for the sake of an argument that an implicit contract has moral & legal validity. I am driving my car through the highway. I meet you in the middle of the journey & am offering you a lift. The vehicle reaches near an abyss & I am now speeding up the car and shouting at you-“How dare you invade into my property? Get down!” Is it right or wrong? If not, why? There is an implicit contract here and one can’t have any such contract with an unborn child, you say? Very well! Imagine it is your new born child that I am giving a lift-with your consent, of course. What if I am doing it to him? This is very much similar to a mother deciding to abort the child. There is an implicit contract with you, you say? Very well! Imagine now, that you agree to me that I can force him to get down from the driving vehicle whenever I want. Am I wrong in doing so? If so, in what sense? Our contract was that I am free to do so & the child, apparently is not capable of making any such contract. This is very much similar to both parents deciding to abort the child. Do I not have the perfect right to aggress against that invader? One should further keep in mind that Murray & other libertarian thinkers do not agree to the legal enforcement of implicit contracts & promises. None of the counter arguments I made above has any validity under such premises.
One should think twice before getting into any vehicle in a Libertarian society. It could be a murder attempt!
No Responses to “The Morality Of Abortions”
Leave a Reply
Unpretentious Diva Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 pmI don’t care about what Rothbard said about it or anything (I have very little or almost no reverence for him).
But I would like to COUNTER QUESTION you.
So why don’t you try to answer that, when you offered a person lift in your car, was he having a gun in his hand with an expression that he is a looter or a contract killer willing to kill you? And if suppose he was someone you knew he may kill you (as in case of pregnancies where doctors warns that the pregnancy may cause extreme problems while there are 50% chances that pregnancy may be safe for mother).
So If the situation is, you doubt that the person you gave lift is safe or not, and during the travel, after sometime, you come to know that he actually is gonna kill you, he is dangerous, will you try to safeguard your ass against the bullets he will shoot in your backward creek? Trying to safeguard yourself may lead to his death you know! Self-defense is righteous because nobody is willing to die, it is clear to you isn’t it?
Second question is, what if someone shoots at your car and forcibly gets an entry? yes I am talking of pregnancies because of rapes. What if a terrorist stops you at midnight on road and enforces his comrade in your car? Will you try to save your ass because if the police sees you with the infamous terrorist or criminal or terrorist, they may shoot you too or you may get shot while police was trying to kill the terrorist or his comrade who entered your car forcibly?
Would you deny the fact that in such situation where your own life is endangered because of the person who forcibly took a lift in your car or whom you accidentally and innocently gave lift in, if you shouts or criticizes that person who forcibly took lift and try to get rid of him anyhow is righteous?
I consider it as righteous. I may try to get a good look of the person whom I assume to give lift, but even then, i may commit mistake in actually assessing if he is a simple honest citizen or a well-known hard-core criminal, terrorist, or killer who can very easily kill me during the travel.
And in the case of such mistake, I will certainly be entitled for safeguarding my life. its self-defense.
Abortion is LEGAL because it is moral.
Abortion itself is not immoral. Although the person going through the abortion may be immoral. That is a woman may go through abortion even when she actually didn’t needed it.
She may be mercurial deciding to have a baby at one moment and getting hooked and then after 3 months, deciding to have abortion. if she is such mercurial, then she is immoral.
But if she is not such, and she righteously needs an abortion, then it is MORAL!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pmI am objectivist. Yet it doesn’t matter whether the car driver is libertarian or not, but the person who asked for lift can surely be a terrorist, a killer, a burglar a criminal, a rapist too.
And I quote:
“I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art – if they desire to learn it – without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.
Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.
In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.”
Hippocrates, 4th century BCE.
Ruchi Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:25 amI am not a friend of analogies for real life problems, because really you can find an analogy for everything to make it sound like your in the right. And then everything gets muddled up because you forget whether you are talking in the metaphor or the real example and it creates misunderstandings… at least in my experience.
I can quote too: “Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose” Nietzsche
The first thing I ask myself when I read your question – Is abortion moral? – is: What is morality. You first need to define this before you can ask if abortion is it or not. and Morality is one of the vaguest, haziest things to define in an international forum such as this. (You and I probably wouldn’t say stoning a woman to death is moral – in other cultures it is… etc.)
For me, personally, I wouldn’t answer the question at all. I think it is a question that every woman has to answer for herself and it is NObody’s business to interfere. I personally wouldn’t – but I don’t judge others who would or have.
My own mother has had an abortion because she was pregnant with a man whom she didn’t love and didn’t want to stay with under any circumstances, she was basically alone with me and my brother and already felt like she couldn’t handle it. I would never judge her for that – and not just because she is my mother. She did draw her consequences from that and had her tubes tied afterwards.
But even though I couldn’t have an abortion – I always argue Pro-Choice. And I think the reason for that is, that those who argue Pro-Life never JUST argue pro life. Usually it comes with a religious agenda – and that agenda, while using human rights as long is it helps them, completely disregards them when it comes to areas where they are less convenient.
Its no coincidence that in this American election people always talk about Abortion AND Gay rights. I know we don’t talk about that and I don’t want to offend anybody, but I won’t try to argue about morality with someone who doesn’t want to grant gays the same rights as everybody else, just because they are gay and at the same time say ‘You can’t give a a bundle of cells no human rights JUST because it might not be a human jet.”
Also, I feel that especially in the States, the issue is pushed to ridiculous proportions – so much so, that I feel it really isn’t about the issue at all. It is about a conservative outlook and policy. If this was really about human rights and saving lives people would start where children die every day from hunger, war and genocide. Or wouldn’t even start there – would make sure that kids in their own country had health care to get medical treatment if they need it.
In this world of intertwining cultures there are very few things that can definitely said to me moral or immoral – i don’t presume to be in the position to make that choice for abortion.
Because where does it start and where does it stop? Is for a man masturbating wrong, because he spends sperm in waste? There are cultures where this is true.
And what about birth-control? What about the morning-after pill?
The pope says condoms are wrong and thus sanctions AIDS to keep spreading in Africa. I personally think THAT is immoral.
Another example for how easy morality is to stretch – how many people do you think I would have on my back for calling the pope immoral?
So my conclusion – the only morality that exists the the one that we have in our heart – our concise. And nobody can answer this question for someone else. After all, Kant says “Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.”
zazo Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 4:37 pmah! sad..and what a hypocracy! that’s what I saw and want to add here. One question and that’s all from my side, Do you had a sex without your consciousness? if not, then who are you to decide the action against nature? and the cycle of life.
(over)Literacy is sometimes becomes the reason of disaster.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm@ zazo
Have you ever heard of the word “Rape” or coerced sex?
It is true for people like zazo, the literate ignorant are a curse!
Fisherman Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm” I am driving my car through the highway. I meet you in the middle of the journey & am offering you a lift. The vehicle reaches near an abyss & I am now speeding up the car and shouting at you-“How dare you invade into my property? Get down!”
Very clever. I offer you a lift, and you are in my car straightaway. You were giving consent to ride with me.
Very well written, very manipulative. Ron Paul shares the same view.
Venus Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 9:15 pmThe rhetoric on abortion continues to embattle and confuse “pro-choice” and “pro-life”, “liberals” and “conservatives” alike. Many “liberals” complain that it is irrational and brutal to expect a woman to die so that her unborn child may live. Abortion should be permitted basically on demand, certainly in cases where the health and life of the woman are at risk, and even in cases of incest or rape Besides, they remind us, it is legal. In contrast, many “conservatives” argue that abortion can never be rationalized or permitted, as it is fundamentally immoral to kill an unborn child who is an innocent human being, no matter what the circumstances or the law – regardless of the woman’s health, life, incest or rape. At times it seems that the advocates of either position are “talking past” each other, oblivious to the possibility of any moral legitimacy in each’s position. Further, there seems as yet to be no structured or principled means by which to circumvent this highly politicized stand-off or to address these tragic moral dilemmas which after serious consideration are commonly acceptable to both “camps”.
My point is that just because something is immoral we dont have a right to make it illegal.
The common moral principle often used in these difficult situations is that found in the time-honored theory of natural person – known as the principle of double effect. Properly understood, the principle of double effect evolved in order to address just these types of difficult moral dilemmas – in this case where both of the lives of those affected are innocent, and yet something must be done or will happen which inevitably will endanger one of these two innocent lives. The obvious application for our purposes here is when a woman, who is herself an innocent human being, whose human life is precious and must be respected, is pregnant with an unborn child, who is likewise an innocent human being (from fertilization onwards), and whose life is also precious and must be respected. Since, as natural law theory holds, one may never directly intend to kill an innocent human being, under what circumstances and conditions is it morally permissible: (1) for a woman to undergo an abortion procedure; or, (2) for a physician to help one of these innocents to live, by means of other and different morally legitimate medical actions, and yet permit or allow the other, unfortunately, to die?
My point is no human can prove he alone has the absolute unequivocal answer to that dilemma.
Is abortion moral? An equaly valid question could be wheter it is morally defensible to bring an innocent child into this horrible, pain-filled world. Some people are simply not fit to be parents.
I dont believe that abortion is wrong as such. It could even be argued that abortion is perfectly natural – all creatures that raise their young will abondon them if they cannot raise them properly. Indeed, all females will have have miscarriage if the fetus is unable to live, or reabsorb it if they cannot spare the nutrients.
Another point of thought is – a baby cannot think, even to the level of knowing that it exists, or demonstrate even an instinctual layer of selfpreservation. Ethically, murder is wrong because it robs a person of their right to exspress their preference to continue to live. A neonate has no such preference, being intellectually incapable, and thus no right to life.
Pro life central point is that abortion is wrong not only because its murderous, but because adoption is a viable alternative. This is not entirely the case! While many families are waiting for children, this is because of two factors. First, most of those families are not yet officially waiting, as they have to be approved by the stringent safeguards against adoption by those deemed unsuitable.
Secondly, these families insist on adopting only the youngest babies, which leaves a lot of children as wards of the state. It is untrue to imply, as they often do, that children put up for adoption all find happy homes. Is it not kinder to abort fetus, without fear or understanding of death, than to risk (and the odds are high) that child being abandoned to live alone, unloved and in poverty.
alex Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 10:31 pmit is true to an extent.But i guess one cannot generalize your views & explanations.I would say it shud b left to d parents.Their decision shud b respected as it is
sushi Says:
October 26th, 2008 at 10:31 pmHere are the historical facts:
The average family in Ancient Greece had 5 children. Healthy babies could be sold into slavery. Unhealthy ones or otherwise defective ones would be exposed. This meant they were left out in the elements to die. Some babies were exposed simply because a soothsayer forcast an evil from the baby. Some exposed babies were taken in by other people.
The ancient Greeks regarded children as little people. They did not regard them as different from big people. By the time a person was about 13 years old, he or she was considered an adult in every respect. Boys were educated separately for their duties as citizens of the state. Girls were educated by their mothers in the home.
Formal education was woefully inadequate in classical Greece. The lax attitude towards formal education reflects two principles; that children were not regarded in their own right, but were, seen as adults-in-waiting; and that an Athenian had supreme confidence in the ability of their children to become like their peers and to understand and to live by their standards and ideals of what it meant to be a good man and a good citizen in a good society. Some of these ideals and standards were very different depending on what part of Greece you were from. This was especially true in the differences in educating the youth in Athens and in Sparta.
Children of both sexes were kept naked while they were very young and boys spent a lot of time naked in athletic training. Greek boys had to contend with an open attitude toward homosexuality.
If you were a wife of a citizen you spent your time secluded at home having babies, cleaning, cooking, spinning and weaving. Since your needs were taken care of you led a pretty easy life. The husband had to work outside the home, shop, attend political meetings and go to war. Women slaves did more menial work including carrying water and wastes, grinding grain, serving, and in some cases providing sex for their masters.
Women were supposed to be confined to the home but there are reports that they are found outside the home. One possible solution to this contradiction is that the women are veiled when they want to be outside the home when it is not appropriate. There is some suggestion that the men felt the women were invisible in this situation.
The Romans and Greeks weren’t much concerned with protecting the unborn, and when they did object to abortion it was often because the father didn’t want to be deprived of a child that he felt entitled to.
The birth process in women was seen as related to the production of natural goods on which the community depended. The fertility of women was seen as related to the fertility of plants and animals and even of the soil.
If the experience of Agnodice is any indication the women were attended by male doctors at birth, if at all. Men tried to keep Agnodice from becoming a doctor, but the women protested. Women became doctors until the 12th century. Midwifes probably became popular when woman were no longer able to become doctors.
As to the risk of childbirth Medea says “I’d three time rather stand And face a line of shields than once give birth.”
Abortion was accepted in both ancient Rome and Greece.
The ancient Greeks tolerated abortions though they were not all that common. During their time it was much safer to carry a baby to full term than have an abortion. Perhaps only one in ten mothers survived an abortion. The ancient Greeks tolerated infanticide. If the newborn baby was malformed then it would be exposed to the elements to die. If the baby was unwanted it could be sold into slavery. There were safer options in those days than abortion.
The early philosophers also argued that a foetus did not become formed and begin to live until at least 40 days after conception for a male, and around 80 days for a female. The philosopher Aristotle wrote:
…when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation. Aristotle, Politics 7.16
Aristotle thought that female embryos developed more slowly than male embryos, but made up for lost time by developing more quickly after birth. He appears to have arrived at this idea by seeing the relative development of male and female foetuses that had been miscarried.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, described how a dancer came to him with a need for an abortion. Hippocrates caused her to make certain violent jumping dance movements and her baby aborted. He then went on to make important observations about the aborted fetus. Abortion was not common in ancient Greece simply because they practiced infanticide.
During the Roman period the demand for babies dropped and some of the women opted for self-induced abortions which they performed on themselves with a knife. A desperate woman would plunge a dagger into her vagina, killing the baby. This would usually result in the death of the mother as well as the baby. This is a very un-safe practice and many of these women died. It was much safer for the mother to carry the baby to full-term and then expose it or sell it than to try to abort it before birth.
A parent who abandoned a new-born baby to die was not punished in any way. If a person found such a baby they could take it as their own.
The Old Testament has several legal passages that refer to abortion, but they deal with it in terms of loss of property and not sanctity of life.
The status of the foetus as property in the Bible is shown by the law that if a person causes a miscarriage they must pay a fine to the husband of the woman, but if they also cause the woman to die then they are liable to be killed.
The word “abortion” does not appear in any translation of the bible!
Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:
“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
“And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . .”–Ex. 21:22-25
The bible orders the death penalty for murder of a human being, but not for the expulsion of a fetus.
According to the bible, life begins at birth–when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as “breath” in several significant passages, including the story of Adam’s creation in Genesis 2:7, when God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth.
The New Testament doesn’t explicitly deal with abortion.
Even antiabortionists admit that, their reasoning is stretching Bible verses to claim that fetus is a child too:
Psalm 127:3-5; 128:3-5 — Children are a blessing, a source of happiness and joy to their parents.
Titus 2:4 — Young women should be taught to love their children.
Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4 — God has made us stewards of our children.
(antiabortionist view) “But an unborn baby is a “child,” and a woman who has conceived is a mother even before the baby is born. Abortion does fit the Bible definition of murder. But even if it did not, it would still be sinful because it is unloving, a lack of appreciation for God’s blessings, and a gross abuse of our stewardship to raise our children as God directs.”
Through much of Western history abortion was not criminal if it was carried out before ‘quickening’; that is before the foetus moved in the womb at between 18 and 20 weeks into the pregnancy. Until that time people tended to regard the foetus as part of the mother and so its destruction posed no greater ethical problem than other forms of surgery.
English Common Law agreed that abortion was a crime after ‘quickening’ – but the seriousness of that crime was different at different times in history.
In 1803 English Statute Law made abortion after quickening a crime that earned the death penalty, but a less serious crime before that.
In 1837 English law abolished the significance of quickening, and also abandoned the death penalty for abortion.
In the 1920s English law added a get-out clause that stopped abortion being a crime if it was “done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother.”
This change officially recognised a little-stressed feature of anti-abortion laws; they were often intended to protect women from a dangerous medical procedure, and not to protect the life of the foetus.
In 1938 the important case of R v Bourne decided in favour of an abortion performed on a 14 year old girl who had been raped – the court felt that the girl’s mental health would have suffered had she given birth – and this established that the mother’s mental suffering could be sufficient reason for an abortion.
The judge (Mr. Justice Macnaghten) put it like this:
…if the doctor is of the opinion, on reasonable grounds and with adequate knowledge, that the probable consequence of the continuance of the pregnancy will be to make the woman a physical or mental wreck, the jury are entitled to take the view that the doctor … is operating for the purpose of preserving the life of the mother.
Abortion was common in most of colonial America, but it was kept secret because of strict laws against unmarried sexual activity.
Laws specifically against abortion became widespread in America in the second half of the 1800s, and by 1900 abortion was illegal everywhere in the USA, except in order to save the life of the mother.
Some writers have suggested that the pressure to ban abortion was not entirely ethical or religious, but was partially motivated by the medical profession as a way of attacking the non-medical practitioners who carried out most abortions.
Abortions were made legal in the United States in a landmark 1973 Supreme Court judgement, often referred to as the Roe v Wade case.
In 2003 the plaintiff in Roe v Wade asked for the decision to be reversed and put forward questionable evidence that abortion is harmful to women.
Abortion rights faced restriction in 2003 after the US House of Representatives and the US Senate voted to ban late-term ‘partial birth’ abortions.
Suzy-Q Says:
October 26th, 2008 at 10:56 pmwhat a tough tough subject. funny that you should write about it because its been on my mind lately.
i used to think…im pro choice but against abortion, because simply, if i had sex and got pregnant, its my responsibility and i should not back out of responsibilities. i know if i wasnt able to care for it i could give it up for adoption. but thats just as good as throwing it out on the road to hitch hike isn’t it? using your anolgy, the baby is right back where it started, and can only hope the ride he or she gets is good and loving, not trickery or murderer or whatever else out there.
i think of myself as a baby…and i realize i really dont remember any of it. if i was aborted? i dont think as a baby i would even know how to care. i wouldnt even know what life meant…i do now. im glad to be alive, surely, thank God i was born and not disposed of! and then i think…even if i was born and thrown away for adoption, i would still feel lucky to be alive. we’re all strong enough to realize even through the bad times, we’re still very very lucky. unfortunetly, most people may just be too naive to realize it?
all in all i am unconclusive.
but then again. i never ever want kids. and i am very passionate about never becoming a mother. so….what would i do?
anyway, thanks for the comment. but a 7? how do you figure?