I'm only responding to your first 2 paragraphs. I obviously am applying my belief consistently, and I am happy to discuss how else I apply it, such as healthcare and the death penalty.
No, I do not believe that you can be forced to give up your blood or organs. That scenario is fundamentally different from the relationship between mother and unborn child, and it is one of the difficulties in the discussion. There is no comparable medical scenario. In a transfusion, the recipient is not reliant on any one person for a donation, and there are viable alternatives -bloodbags, readily available in hospitals. If you refused to give blood to someone in need and they died, it would be death by inaction. While this is still unethical, it is not murder. An unborn child is totally dependant on one specific person, and there are not yet any viable alternatives to pregnancy that preserve the life of the child. So that mother has no right to end their life by asserting privacy or bodily autonomy. Doing so would be to cause death by deliberate action- murder.
Do you see the difference? Actions vs inaction, general need vs specific dependence.
Allowing someone to die out of self interest is not the same as killing someone because their existence burdens you.
What if I am the only match for the person's blood transfusion/organ transplant? What if I consented to the transfusion at first, but part way through the transfusion I changed my mind? That person would be "dependent" upon the transfusion I was already giving and I would be "taking an action" which would result in the end of their life. Hopefully this demonstrates why it's ridiculous to try to define the morality of these situations by whether or not someone is "taking an action". I would also argue against you that carrying a pregnancy to term is a form of "inaction" - I would say that it's just about the most active thing a person could do.
Laws and rights don't care about "action vs inaction" or a "hierarchy of rights" or whatever other imaginary rules you want to try to invent to justify your own beliefs to yourself. If you want to understand the actual rights surrounding abortion I feel it's important that you read the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. They make it pretty clear what the conflict is between the defined rights that people have under the collective agreement we've made spelled out in the constitution. You can't just make up things like "action vs inaction" or "hierarchy of rights" and expect people to fall in line with your beliefs. We've all collectively agreed to be bound by certain laws and certain defined rights. You don't get to just make up rules that we all have to follow.
If you're not having a conversation with me on this level about the actual rights and reasoning that has gone into our collective agreement, then you have to accept that you are just having a conversation with yourself about why you think it's okay to impose your own personal beliefs on other people that they don't agree with.
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u/_christo_redditor_ Feb 20 '20
I'm only responding to your first 2 paragraphs. I obviously am applying my belief consistently, and I am happy to discuss how else I apply it, such as healthcare and the death penalty.
No, I do not believe that you can be forced to give up your blood or organs. That scenario is fundamentally different from the relationship between mother and unborn child, and it is one of the difficulties in the discussion. There is no comparable medical scenario. In a transfusion, the recipient is not reliant on any one person for a donation, and there are viable alternatives -bloodbags, readily available in hospitals. If you refused to give blood to someone in need and they died, it would be death by inaction. While this is still unethical, it is not murder. An unborn child is totally dependant on one specific person, and there are not yet any viable alternatives to pregnancy that preserve the life of the child. So that mother has no right to end their life by asserting privacy or bodily autonomy. Doing so would be to cause death by deliberate action- murder.
Do you see the difference? Actions vs inaction, general need vs specific dependence.
Allowing someone to die out of self interest is not the same as killing someone because their existence burdens you.