If Consciousness doesnt define personhood, then explain what does, and why.

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My Political Blog (Last post Feb 14) - My MySpace Page

A person is any living, whole organism of the Genus Homo. I agree with Calvin Coolidge that personal and property rights are ultimately the same thing. A person has full self-ownership from conception. Consciousness is merely the realization of this. It is neither legal nor moral to take property from someone even if they don't know that they have it. Consciousness is relevant to my argument in one key respect, however. All people, when in a conscious state, wish in some way to own themselves. Even suicide is an assertion of self-ownership. We all want complete and unconditional self-ownership. Logically, therefore, we cannot deny this ownership from others. To do so would assert inequality, meaning that there would be no reason that others should not assert the same inequality over us. In other words, if I kill another, I cannot assert that someone killing me is wrong.
I'll go a step further. All conscious people are glad, in some way, that they were not killed as zygotes. You might give an example of someone who "wishes that they had never been" and so might seem to prefer having been killed as a zygote (before they were aware of their own existence), yet in so wishing they are contradicting themselves. They wish to have the power to make the decision about whether or not they exist, a power that they would not have had they been killed as zygotes. You might ask, then, why I don't consider forms of contraception to be equivalent to murder. I don't think that because with contraception, there is no physical human form to begin with and thus no person and no rights. It is in the human physical form, whether it is a zygote or a grown adult, that personhood exists. Note that, for the purposes of my case, the existence or non-existence of souls and God are irrelevant.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

Remember prohibition, a decision taken after pressure from a few old ladies? Look what happened everything went underground, gangsters prospered and people got poisoned. Why do people think they have the right to foist their views on anyone (often with violence) what makes them think they hold the moral high ground. Everyone has a point of view it does not make them wrong because it does not agree with whatever the other person believes, it is a view. Some people think that abortion is right for them, it is their view, and if it is not available legally it will go underground with predictable horrific consequences. I do not believe abortion is right, that is my view, however, I do not think it mandatory for everyone to agree with me That is why I voted for

Remember prohibition, a decision taken after pressure from a few old ladies? Look what happened everything went underground, gangsters prospered and people got poisoned. Why do people think they have the right to foist their views on anyone (often with violence) what makes them think they hold the moral high ground. Everyone has a point of view it does not make them wrong because it does not agree with whatever the other person believes, it is a view. Some people think that abortion is right for them, it is their view, and if it is not available legally it will go underground with predictable horrific consequences. I do not believe abortion is right, that is my view, however, I do not think it mandatory for everyone to agree with me That is why I voted for

Abortion is a life and death situation ... for the baby. Of course, I think one should have the legal right to kill one's kids ... or anyone else who might be financially or otherwise inconvenient.

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Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University, 1993

So a fetus born without a brain is still a person by your definition. Correct?

You have no way of knowing that actually. That is an assumption you are making.

The analogy does not work here. Outlawing aboriton will not result in MORE abortions. It will result in less. People will not want an abortion MORE if it is illegal.

That is my argument as well, but apparently lots of people have no problem taking away the rights of unborn children.

Pedophiles and racists often make the same argument.

Does the fetus ever get a say in whether or not aborition is right for them?

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A fetus born without a brain is only part of an organism, not a whole organism.

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Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University, 1993

S-S is right; I've often wished my mom had been smart enough to have aborted me.

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Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University, 1993

My opinion on the issue is more moderate than most's. I support abortion for the life of the woman, in the case that she is raped, and within the first trimester. I do not support publically funded abortion, and programs that would reduce their use.

Forcing myself to an extreme however, I voted "for" for the purposes of this poll.

Explain to me why you oppose abortion at all. Why does it matter if the woman is rape or if it is past the first trimester?

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