Arguing in favor of abortion on the basis of legal precedent doesnt work, because those legal precedents were designed for other circumstances.
No it doesn't, it actually strengthens them if it can be shown that another case found in favour of the things related to the case they are arguing.
I DID like how Sam tried to say that women having a right to abortion was a "special privilege only for women". Which is like arguing against vasectomies as a "special privilege only for men".
The question is really whether the woman has the right to self defense in this type of situation, to what extent she has the right to act in defense of her person, all factors considered. When considering self defense justifications, we must also consider what that person did to put themselves in that situation, the concept of liability and personal accountability. For example, you cannot go up to a group of men and wave your gun around, then claim "self defense" when you have to shoot one of them because they are pulling out their guns. Although both sides have a fundamental right to act in defense of their persons, the person who created the situation is responsible. So when the woman got pregnant, and let it grow to the point of becoming a fetus, it was as if she engaged the fetus on the street with a loaded gun, if I can draw that analogy. That doesn't give her the right to self defense if she feels threatened.
All your points are covered in this thread already. It is the foetus that creates the situation not the woman, the only thing that will turn a non-pregnant woman into a pregnant one is the implantation of a fertilized ovum into the uterine wall REGARDLESS of how many times she has sex. All sex does is create a risk of pregnancy and no person is legally obliged to suffer injury die to a risk taken, and even the risk created is not high - less than a 6% chance of pregnancy occurring from a single act of sexual intercourse and that does not even take into account any contraception used. Furthermore a person can consent to injuries but at any point can with draw that consent any injuries incurred after that point are illegal and subject to being stopped via self-defence up to and including deadly force,add to that-that the state has a duty of care to help any person to defend themselves against non consented injuries i.e. IF the foetus is deemed a person from conception the state under the equal protection clause has to help the woman stop the foetus from injuring her if she does not consent to those injuries, just as it does for any other person.
Another question we can ask is does the woman have the right to self defense when she isn't responsible for putting herself in that situation. For example, when she has twins and the pregnancy is a product of rape. If I can draw another analogy involving guns again... Someone out there wants to kill you. You know who they are. You are walking around in a crowded place carrying a shotgun (ridiculous, I know), and out of nowhere you see your would-be assasin. He sees you and you see him. He reaches into his trenchcoat for what appears to be a gun. You want to blast him to bits, but there's just one problem. You are surrounded by a crowd of people, and standing behind this man are two small children. If you act in self defense, these innocent bystanders also die. What would be the moral thing to do? (And let's try to stay away from the argument that "bad people will go on to commit other bad things, so need to be stopped at any cost". Suppose this is a unique situation where, even though you know this other man is out to kill you, you're pretty sure he won't be out to try to kill anyone else. Maybe someone brutally murdered/raped his daughter and he mistakenly thinks it was you, something like that.)
Firstly I wish you would stick to the topic and address the items in the OP and not wander off into all sorts of unlikely fantasies ... however, A person never loses the right of self-defence where their consent has not been given, the circumstances of how the woman got pregnant are irrelevant to the question of is the foetus causing her bodily harm without her consent, the answer being yes then she has the same right to defend herself as you do. Regardless of the knowledge that the person wants to kill you, you cannot engage a pre-emptive strike against that person, making an assumption that he is reaching for a gun is not justification for you to shoot first, as to the people surrounding you and him they are innocent of involvement and as such IMO you have a duty to retreat.
If you had to make the choice between being killed by someone else or having to kill two innocent people, which one would you choose? Which one should you choose? This is basically the predicament of a woman pregnant with twins as a result of rape.
Well no it is not her predicament, her predicament is only should she consent to the injuries the twin fetuses are causing her or not, the method of how she became pregnant is not relevant i.e. how she became pregnant has no bearing on her right to consent to the injuries or not that the twin fetuses are causing her. Just to add if she were in the situation of having to choose between her own death or the death of her twin fetuses, choosing to die herself would still result in the death of her fetuses ... unless you are going to move the goalposts now and say they are over the viability threshold
Resurrecting this thread as [MENTION=70227]JoakimFlorence[/MENTION] has raised some points and as this thread covers them it would seem to be the appropriate place to discuss them
