vanpelt@unisv.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (03/18/88)
In article <7751@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, carrier@maypo.berkeley.edu (Stephen Carrier) writes: > In article <2146@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> joel@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (joel s. kollin) writes: > > >The whole controversy comes down to whether or when a fetus becomes a > >human being. Libertarian philosophy probably has nothign to do with > >this determination. > > We _know_ what a fetus is, more or less. Whether or not an n-week fetus > is a human being is an entirely arbitrary matter, unless you care to > define `human being' and if your definition is `human zygote past the > age of x days' or `having an adult human's right-to-life' then you are > either begging an answer or begging the question. > That is the question. I'm uncomfortable with the position that the fetus is human, but has no right to foist himself off on the mother. The same argument applies equally to toddlers, which, by the same logic, could be dumped off by the side of the road like excess puppies. (Of course, people do this, too, from time to time.) We need some line. Viability is the line that the Supreme Court has drawn, but this is more a matter of medical technology than any intrinsic property of the fetus. An early reasonable line would be the point at which the fetus has brain activity and/or a heartbeat. This is especially attractive to me because of the symmetry with how we determine death. Later lines might involve some particular level of brain development. But that line needs to be there. Some quite respectable people have advocated allowing infantcide up to 2 years. At the bottom of that slippery slope lies Auschwitz. From a libertarian standpoint (I have a great deal of sympathy for the libertarian viewpoint, though I'm not likely to join the Libertarian party) the fetus hardly had any say in arriving at the position he is in. It seems to me that, if the fetus is human, an abortion must certainly qualify as "Initiation of force". -- Mike Van Pelt ..uunet!ubvax!unisv!vanpelt