[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by Radar

Arresting people who have not committed a crime is not their job, so they weren't doing their job but were in fact violating the rights of another, which is...you guessed it.....a crime.

Endangering a fetus is a crime, if it were not, then she would have been released immediately.

Originally posted by Radar

No it doesn't. Common sense follows natural law which dictates that we each own our own bodies and everything in them. We each have sole decision making power over our bodies, minds, and lives and can do anything we want with them. Common sense doesn't seem very common with you.

To quote Mark Twain, "Common sense ain't." Natural law actually dicates nothing about rights per se.

"To summarize: the paradigmatic natural law view holds that (1) the natural law is given by God; (2) it is naturally authoritative over all human beings; and (3) it is naturally knowable by all human beings. Further, it holds that (4) the good is prior to the right, that (5) right action is action that responds nondefectively to the good, that (6) there are a variety of ways in which action can be defective with respect to the good, and that (7) some of these ways can be captured and formulated as general rules."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/

Originally posted by Radar

First there is no such thing as an "unborn child". Up until the second they are born, they are a fetus (not a child) and a fetus is not entitled to rights. Second, nobody's rights entitle them to be able to force you to go through surgery, including a fetus if they had rights.

I will agree but with strong reservations. The line between rights and consideration blur in a situation such as this and to dismiss the need to care for a future person is, I think, terribly shortsighted.

Originally posted by Radar

Our rights end where another person's (a fetus is not a person) begin. My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. We are each BORN (not before birth) with rights and that rights includes the right to defend our own lives. If a woman were to swallow a live grenade (impressive throat control), it would be no different than taking out a gun and trying to kill people and those whom she was trying to kill would have the natural right to destroy her.

Are you deriving your opinion about the stark difference between the fetus and the child from an established paradigm or is this self-generated? If you're reading it somewhere I'd be interested in reading it myself.

A link would be sufficient.

Originally posted by Radar

I like the handcuffing to a pole and running away answer.

I do too.

Originally posted by Radar

The situation was different because the woman in the hospital did not violate the rights, person, or property of a non-consenting other.

Again this is a sort of grey area, a lack of consent is not dissent. Also, there are circumstances where people incapable of giving consent have both had treatment witheld as well as given. Circumstances vary.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:1) Do you think a fetus should have rights?

Absolutely not. That would be saying that a parasite has rights above the host.

No, it wouldn't. Rights operate on a variable scale.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:A fetus has a unique set of genes.

Life is not defined by strands of DNA. Life is defined by sentience and by birth.

So monkeys, dogs, cats, spiders, trees, etc. are not alive?

Originally posted by Radar

Until the moment of birth, a fetus is a parasite. I know it sounds cold, but it's the truth. To say a fetus not only has rights but that those rights are above the mother's is to say that a parasite has rights and those rights supercede the hosts. In other words, if you have a tapeworm (which has entirely different DNA), the tapeworm has rights and those rights are above yours.

While technically true for the duration of the gestation period, over the lives of the host and the progeny it becomes a case symbiosis.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:A baby one day before birth is not different from a baby one day after birth. Is one more human than the other?

There is no baby one day before birth. Up until the moment of birth, it's not a baby, it's a fetus. And yes, they are very different. In one case the parasite is within the host, and in the next they have ceased being a parasite (at least in the same sense of the word) and are living outside of other beings.

While I agree that sometimes arbitrary boundaries are necessary, I think that this one may be a bit too much. An organism that doesn't take some precautions for the future is going to have a slim time of it.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:The government in the past has taken some adults and forced them to go into dangerous life and death situations with the (arguable) purpose of insuring the safety of other people. It is called the draft.

The draft is a direct violation of our rights and a violation of the limited Constitutional authority of the U.S. Government. I hope you're not trying to use this violation of human rights as an excuse to violate the rights of others like pregnant women.

While conscription has been shown to be of questionable success it is still a common, and apparently acceptable situation. Comparing the two situations does nothing to further argument in either direction.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:so, are you both pro life AND pro draft?

Funny eh? Let me guess? Pro death penalty? Life is sacred until you're born. After that they don't give a shit about you. As long as there is a steady stream of people to get shot at, everything will be fine.

You didn't answer the question and are also minimizing the sanctity that people have for the sacrifices of dead service people since the beginning of recorded time.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:This is called being a "Republican".

Sorry, but Democrats support the draft too. Hillary Clinton and many democrats are pushing to re-instate the draft. Both of the major parties think government has more of a claim on our lives than we do.

I don't trust politicians as a matter of course. They're a whole different species of person.

Originally posted by Radar

quote:When a Mexican or Canadian takes one step over the border they have US constitutional rights they didn't have a few seconds before. Location, location, location

All people are born with the same rights regardless of where they are born. The only thing that changes from location to location is which of your rights are protected, and which are violated.

I don't agree that foreigners should have the same constitutional rights as a tax paying citizen.

And as far as the over-arching rights thing goes, see my argument towards the beginning.

What books do you read?