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Happy HumanLight!

The Violinist

The violinist argument fails for several reasons, mainly the fact that the intent of an abortion is to kill the fetus, not to terminate the pregnancy. However, it also fails because it assumes that it is morally permissible to unplug the violinist.

First of all, in this analogy you in no way caused the violinist to hook up to you. This attachment occurred against your will and "the society of music lovers" has in this case severely violated your rights. I would like to demonstrate in this post, however, how the common moral intuition in this case fails when scrutinized logically.

As I see it, the main reasons many people see unplugging the violinist as acceptable are twofold.

Firstly, being attached to the violinist is a huge pain in the neck. You need to stay in bed until the violinist recovers. I doubt many people would have the same sense of outrage if you could more or less go about your business. However, as I demonstrated yesterday, the right to life supersedes the right to liberty. Just like the intention of act of causing the avalanche, the intention of act of unplugging yourself is to regain your liberty and to "undo" the situation you have been unjustly placed in to.

The objection based on positive and negative rights will be addressed in the next section.

Secondly, the situation they are placed in is incredibly unjust, and unplugging is seen as merely returning to the situation prior your kidnapping in which the violinist was dieing of natural causes and you had no greater moral obligation towards him than towards a man on the other side of the planet. However, regardless of how this situation came to pass, we need to consider the present situation.

I will grant that the violinist lacks the positive right to life: the right to use your body; if you could unplug yourself without killing the violinist, I doubt anyone would object. Also, if the violinist were to approach you and demand your assistance, I would be the first to say that you have no obligation to come to his aid; this represents a situation in which you are passively letting the violinist die.

However, in the present situation, you are already hooked up to the violinist. As such, you cannot disconnect yourself because the violinist's death would be a direct result of your action; this is a situation in which you are actively killing the violinist. Because of this fact, the violinist's negative right to life comes into play, just as in the avalanche scenario. Regardless of how this situation came to pass, even though the violinist has no right to your body, your moral obligation to not kill (cause the death of) him takes over.

I may seem like I'm repeating myself, but I want to make sure I have made my point in a way everyone can understand. It may seem counterintuitive that the society of music lovers could impart upon you an obligation that you didn't previously have, or impart upon the violinist a positive right he never had, but the point I'm trying to make is that the application of negative rights is more than adequate to show why unplugging yourself is wrong. Positive rights apply to inaction while negative rights apply to action. Many see the act of unplugging as merely choosing not to allow the violinist usage of your body, but that choice has already been made (I'm sure we can all agree that the society of music lovers have violated your rights).

Because unplugging the violinist is not an act of inaction, the violinist's negative right to live comes into play, and as such, it is immoral to unplug yourself.

However, because your intent was not to cause the violinist's death, in the current legal system of the United States would most likely charge you with manslaughter and not murder. In addition, if the violinist chose to be plugged in, unplugging would be justified as self-defense.

To sum up, while you have no moral obligation to remain plugged in, you do have an obligation not to act in such a way that said action leads to the death of an innocent human being.

Life > Liberty > Pursuit of happiness

It can easily be demonstrated that the right to liberty supersedes the right to pursue happiness.

Proving that life outweighs liberty is more complicated, but this quote from Libertarians for Life does a great job.

...[Y]ou are on a mountain, and I attack you and throw you into a place filled with rocks that will tumble down below if given a push. The only way you can leave that spot is by causing a landslide. On a perch below is someone else I also forced there. If there's a landslide, their perch will be destroyed and they'll fall to their death. There is no way for your calls for help to be heard; you have to wait until you are discovered missing and a rescue party is sent. Let's assume that you are in no danger; one of your hobbies is to be a survivalist; you know how to attract game birds. You are able to live off them until found, but that will take nine months. The other person is also able to survive because your efforts to attract birds will inevitably attract birds to their perch, too.

Does your right to liberty include a right to push the rocks out of the way and cause the death of the other person?

The law of transitivity can show that life supersedes the right to pursue happiness, or you can consider that every single murder has had a motive.

It is also important to point out each right is predicated upon the previous one(s). You can't pursue happiness if you aren't free and you can't be free if you're not alive and you cannot pursue happiness if you'ren't alive.

"Clean Feed"

Okay, by now everyone knows that the Senate health care bill funds abortions but has otherwise been pussified to the point of being a giant handout to insurance corporations* (still a mandate to buy but no public option and not even the Medicare buy-in for those 55-64).

Maybe you haven't heard that Australia is considering across-the-board censorship on anything deemed "inappropriate".

*...and yet Republicans STILL are fighting against it!

Holy ****!

A loophole in state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.

Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby's airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

"In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it.", says Investigator Tracy Emerson. "She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it's still
attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it's no crime in the state of Virginia."

The Campbell County Sheriff's Office and Commonwealth's Attorney's office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Emerson tells us there's a double standard with the law. If someone other than the mother harms a baby still attached to the mother, that person can be charged.

The baby's grandmother was home and was the one who called 911. Police say she will not be charged because the baby was born in the middle of the night and the grandmother did not know until late morning. Investigators tell us the baby's father was upset when he showed up at the home after deputies.

"He was very upset. I think the grandparents were upset. I believe everyone was upset, except for the person who should have been upset, the mother.", says Emerson.

Emerson tells us the woman knew she was pregnant and had received prenatal care. He says the baby was full-term, due Tuesday. The medical examiner says the baby was born healthy. An autopsy is being performed. The baby's body will then be released to the family.

Link

Volition

I'd embed it here, but it's too wide, so here's the link.

Socialist Stupidity? Say it ain't so!

Zygotes are not eggs, and I clarified this in my first post, but this is the first time I have ever seen an embryo or fetus called an "egg".

They then go on to commit the sperm fallacy and quote a stupid argument debunked a thousand times.

Seriously, I think that five halves of my braincells died wen me reed funee articpdsalkfcdkddfffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv...

Amendment XXVIII

This was pretty verbose, so I give you...

1. Within the United States, and any place subject to their jurisdiction, membership in the human species shall be deemed a necessary and sufficient qualification for the status of personhood.

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

"Wait, there's a debate over ______?": prenaticide

I've explained why abortion is not a reproductive right, why it's not a privacy right, why "the right to choose" is meaningless, what abortion actually is, and why prenatal rights do not mean female slavery. I have dissected the "tubesock holocaust" absurdity. I have explained how the unborn cannot be blamed. I have answered rhetorical questions. I have debunked Roebotic propaganda.

Abortion is not a medical procedure because medicine is the art and science of healing, and thus abortion is antithetical to health care.

I've grappled with the dumbest. I've debunked numerous fallacious arguments. I've gotten very mad. I've called upon you.

Now, as we reach the end of this experiment and into the year two thousand and ten, I hope I've changed at least one person's mind, or inspired one person to action. Because if this blog saves a single life and spares a single set of parents from grief, it was all worth it.

Abortion coverage could be MANDATED!

Americans United for Life: Senate passes the pro-abortion Mikulski Amendment under the guise of preventive care

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today the Senate accepted the Mikulski (D-MD) amendment to the Senate health care bill by a vote of 61-39. The amendment does not explicitly require abortion coverage, but it also fails to explicitly exclude it. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) could categorize abortion as “preventive care,” and would therefore recommend coverage for abortion by all private plans. The recommendation would force private plans to offer abortion coverage, furthering the abortion lobby's agenda of mainstreaming abortion as health care.

Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest stated, “Abortion is not ‘preventive care.’ In this amendment, Sen. Mikulski apparently intends to expand abortion services under the guise of mandated preventive care. This deceptive tactic underscores the need for an amendment that explicitly prohibits the government from mandating that private insurance companies cover abortion under the guise of "preventive care.”

Senator Murkowski’s amendment would have ensured that abortion is not classified by the government as “preventive care” or as a “preventive service.” The Murkowski proposal was defeated 41 to 59.

Dr. Yoest added, “The Senate failed the first test to stop mandatory abortion coverage by voting against the Murkowski proposal. Senator Murkowski’s amendment would have prevented abortion from being categorized as ‘preventive care.’ It is critical that such language be added to the Senate health care reform bill. Otherwise, for the first time in history, the federal government could mandate that private insurance companies cover abortion."

To go to AUL’s analysis of the Mikulski v. Murkowski Amendment, click here.

AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest and Staff Counsel Mary Harnedare available to provide further comment and analysis on the Mikulski Amendment and other women’s health issues in the health care bill. To arrange an interview, contact Heather Smith 202-270-9962 orHeather.Smith@aul.org.

About Americans United for Life

Americans United for Life (AUL) is the first national pro-life organization in America. In 1980, AUL successfully defended the Hyde Amendment before the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae.

Opposition to justice for Baby Velez

This kind of thing makes me struggle to not call the pro-abortion camp "anti-life". When they fight tooth-and-nail against things like the Unborn Victims of Violence Act or expanding health care to the unborn or even allowing pregnant mothers to use deadly force in defense of their unborn children, they loose a lot of credibility.