| | I've been trying to find the time to check this, so bear with the delays. Thanks for the response Luke, I like your style. I wasn't really contending that someone who did not cause the accident should ever be responsible, so I agree. I'm honestly very curious, so I'm a little disappointed that only a few of my questions were answered from my second post.
I might as well drop the accident/coma thing. It's mysteriously concealed anyhow, but the main point is with regard to potential. What I'm curious about now is what William is saying. Your post begs many questions, and I hope you don't mind if I ask them.
I realize that you're more comfortable with the standard of birth, but for reasons already discussed, I do not think that birth changes anything philosophically/morally. While I'm at it, why not define humans in the simplest manner - DNA? Humans have human DNA. No arbitrary boundaries, no reliance on convenience.
You make the assumption that we are rational and have rights insofar as we are rational, as I understand it. I'll challenge that as well, but not now. This makes it difficult to tell when any being has rights - ie when it becomes a human. You must admit that a baby is no more rational ten seconds after birth than it was a few minutes earlier, and that certain animals have greater mental ability than newborns.
If newborns have no rights, why would it be wrong? Why do we define what makes us human, or what gives us rights? Is it not to answer the very question of morality? (we define what is human, so as to punish/protect accordingly). Obviously my question was emotionally charged. The purpose of the question is not to make you look like a monster, but to point out what appears a contradiction to me. Do I correctly understand you when you say that killing babies is not right, but that killing (one's own) children, for any reason, should be a legal right?
I'm especially concerned with you saying that "anyone who killed a baby could not be arrested for violating its rights." Does this mean that the laws should not take rightness/wrongness into account, or do you mean that they should be arrested on other grounds, but not with regard to rights? Assume that we're talking about one's own child.
By the way, if you were to ask me which side of the debate I was on, I would tell you that I'm utterly undecided. I can't accept one opinion without testing it, now can I?
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