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From: liz@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: The Nature of Rights
Message-ID: <514@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Jul-83 15:02:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.514
Posted: Wed Jul  6 15:02:33 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 21:10:55 EDT
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 85

(I tried to post this once before to both net.philosophy and
net.religion, but it only went to net.philosophy because I put a space
as well as a comma between the two names ("net.philosophy, net.religion"
instead of "net.philosophy,net.religion").  >Sigh<...)

	From: cbostrum@watdaisy.UUCP

	>From liz@umcp-cs.UUCP
	>	... What are the necessary morally relevant criteria
	>	for possessing a right to life? ...
	>This is a religious question and a matter of belief.  Are
	>humans morally special in some way different from the
	>animals ...?

	Whoa! Whether or not you have rights is a religious question?
	... if you mean the nature of rights or means of possessing
	them is religious, then for all those athiests out there who
	believe in rights, I should hope it isn't!

By "a religious question", I didn't mean that atheists couldn't believe
in rights.  I just meant that different people have different views on
human rights, and that (in the context of abortion and someone asking
"What's so special about being human?") what it meant to be human
depends on what you believe about human rights.

By the way, if rights do not depend on people's beliefs, then they must
be some kind of absolute standard... (and I do believe in this kind of
absolute.)

On abortion, you say:

	The issue about comatose people does seem difficult to solve
	for many pro-abortion people who take a similar line.  I submit
	that it is simple.  It is totally analogous to the way that
	when someone dies, he can dispose of his property (and in fact
	his body) for the most part as he sees fit.  Why?  Because they
	*are* his property.  Once you conceive of a person's body and
	his life as his propery, this problem dissolves.  Just as
	murder and lying are considered wrong since they are an offense
	against someone's property (and this is an *implicit*
	agreement) so killing a comatose person should be accepted as
	wrong, without his previous permission since there is a similar
	implicit agreement that this is an offense against his property.

Well, the obvious reply to this is that killing a fetus is an offense
against the fetus' property.  But, I think you mean also that the fetus
is not yet capable of having property and that his body still belongs
to its mother.  This is harder to answer.  Two things come to mind.
One is that the body of the fetus does belong to the fetus and it is
certainly the one that experiences the pain of being forcibly removed
(although the woman does experience some labour -- but she has some
choice...).  The second is that (as I believe that the fetus is human
and a person) whether it has grown to the point it can fully possess
its body.

	... by saying "such arguments endanger [fetal] rights as well"
	you are engaging in the fallacy of presuming they have rights
	to begin with.

Yes, because I'm assuming they are human.

	It appears you have an axe to grind, and have
	already decided for certain that foetuses have a right to life,
	but no nonhumans do.  The question is, **On what ground do you
	base these beliefs??**  While I admit that my criterion so far
	is not perfect, it is one hell of a lot better than "X can have
	rights iff X is human", or "X has rights iff God says so" (the
	last is a screamer).

I'm not so much discussing whether nonhumans have a right to life, but
whether a fetus (which I'm assuming is human) has a right to life.
And, I do base my beliefs in a belief in God as a starting point.  I
don't think its illogical to believe that there's a God that's
interested in our affairs and has some things to say about them.  But I
also think that from a medical stand-point, a seperate unique life
begins at conception and that it is indeed a human life.  Sigh...-- 

				-Liz
				...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz (Usenet)
				liz.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay (Arpanet)
-- 

				-Liz Allen
				...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz (Usenet)
				liz.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay (Arpanet)