The Absolute Tyranny of Autonomy

I finished a conversation with a female (from Ireland) on youtube (in my personal mailbox). It's below (my comments are in parentheses).

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"Your essential question/holdings:
(1)"Why is being human so special?"
(2)"A human is a person when they are sentient and capable of consciousness."
(3)"my [sic] issue is with your attitude that a fetus has the 'right' to use a woman's body against her will- that's it, plain and simple."

Re. (3), the US Supreme Court: "If the suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth Amendment]." Therefore, your opinion (3) has no value if the woman carries a "person", according to US law. (This is apart from my or your opinions; The rule of law is what counts ultimately, apart from appeals/dictates from "Nature's God".)"

Thats quite laughable. NOBODY has the right to use anothers body without their consent- how is establishing personhood in a fetus going against this? What is unclear here?

"(1) begs to question, "Why is being a person is so special?" (To me, they are the same question.) What value does life have? Who is entitled to bestow value on someone else? [I should've asked "Who is entitled to negate the value of someone else?"] If you respect animals so much, why not respect all humans (subset of animals in your view)? Do animal mothers have the right to eject their offspring at any point (no, this is not a joke)?"

No, human is not synonymous with person. A dead human being is not longer a person, a human permanently in a vegetative state has no qualities of a person. Simply having a human body does not give you a unique right to life. I do respect humans, equally with non-humans, I just place more weight on the right to autonomy of an existing person than the non-existant rights of a potential person.
You clearly think you have the right to bestow value. Of course animal mothers do, all females do.
Believe it or not, we are thinking, autonomous beings that can make individual decisions and require no input from you.

"(2) is still not a clear definition of personhood (terms not focused; my response is on my understanding of (2)). A person in the zygotic stage reacts naturally to external stimuli. A 7 week old baby has tiny active nerves. Any human before or after viability is sentient. When an adult sleeps, they are not conscious. Are we a person one moment and not the next (vis sleep)? It takes some finite time to become conscious. It just takes a zygotic (embryonic and fetal) person a longer time to become conscious. See http://www.cbhd.org/resources/bioethics/beckwith_2001-11-19.htm (and other writings by Francis J. Beckwith) for more info."

Yes, it is. What are your specific problems with it? Why is it that you dont call a tree a person? I imagine it has something to do with the existence of a brain/self awareness/consciousness.

"Are (1) and (2) just a red-herring for (3)?"

No, they are equally valid reasons for my stance.

"At the end of the day, I have a question: If personhood is established for a non-viable human that is found to be inside a woman's body, does the woman still have a right to kill the non-viable human in your view?"

Yes, no one has the right to use anothers body without their permission, fetus or rapist.

"At the end of the day, this is my business since you and others insist on killing my neighbor, preborn female and male persons."

No, it really isnt. You risk absolutely nothing by taking your stance, you dont even have a concept of the barbaric nature of what you suggest. As a male your view is entirely negligible from the point of ignorance. I notice you didnt answer a lot of my questions and did not even address the autonomy point.

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It was very enlightening, really.

Is it self-contradictory if she says:
(A) "(1) and (2) [are not] a red-herring for (3)" but "equally valid reasons for my stance".
(B)"If personhood is established for a non-viable human that is found to be inside a woman's body, [] the woman still [has] a right to kill the non-viable human []."

I didn't "address the autonomy point" because I wanted to first find out if personhood really mattered to her. Since in reality it didn't, autonomy is the absolute tyrant.

On George Tiller's Murder

This video was in response to a popular (and foul) Youtube channel host. He mentions Mr. Tiller in the beginning of the video.

The War on Terror

[President] Obama's speech at the National Archives on May 21, 2009, as provided by the White House [talking about the "war on terror"/Guantanamo Bay/torture/etc.]

Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens -- fell silent.

Weapons of mass destruction is to the war in Iraq/terror as denial of personhood/human life beginnings is to legalized abortion.

Water boarding, that's nothing. How about tearing humans limb to limb, sucking their brains out, salt poisoning, and burning them to death?

Newly Proposed Mailing Project

Have you heard about the Red Letter Project? Purple Envelope Project? Lots of envelopes.

I have an idea that works on the Judicial Branch. Unfortunately, it's a little more expensive, but I'm doing it. Why not you?

This is the idea:
Send a specific book to Chief Justice Roberts (with an accompanying explanation letter, or course). It's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History by Joseph Dellapenna. (BTW, I have no connection with the author, publisher, or any book seller. I used this book when I visited my senator to discuss FOCA (both my senators (MD) co-sponsored FOCA).)

Below, I'll list the dispelled myths and write a little about why it's so important for the Supreme Court to read this book.

The myths:

(1) that abortion was always a common practice in human history; (2) that voluntary early abortions were not crimes until the nineteenth century; (3) that the nineteenth-century abortion statutes were designed to protect the life of the mother rather the life of the child; and (4) that the statutes were enacted through a conspiracy of men to accomplish several nefarious purposes—to subordinate women, to eliminate competition from women health-care workers with male physicians, and to ensure adequate birth rates among white, Protestant women to prevent “race suicide.”

Why dispelling the myths are so important, in my understanding:
In Roe v. Wade (1973), it was found that “the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of the States today are of relatively recent vintage.” This was the initial premise that set the stage for the Roe conclusion (not that abortion was a right, but that one has a right to privacy to make such a personal decision, including with abortion; the preceding link is an interview with Mary Ann Glendon which explains the lack of the "abortion right" in Roe).

By bringing serious doubt to this premise which started the ball rolling for all the federal court cases, the court will be able to, or even must, revisit the original precedent in Roe under the principle of stare decisis.

From the book:

“It is time that the Court took seriously its own premise that the constitutional status of a claimed right to abort is to be tested against history and traditions of this nation. The accumulated wisdom relating to abortion teaches us that the prohibition of abortion was always viewed as the protection of emerging, yet real, human life —a concern only made more certain by the continual growth of medical knowledge of gestation during the last two centuries.” (p. 1084)

If Chief Justice Roberts received even a few dozen of these books, imagine how his curiosity would compel him to open and even consider reviewing an abortion case with this book in mind.

I wonder if it's possible. I pray that it is.

(tips: buy it used, send by USPS media mail)

Margaret Sanger Knew When Human Life Begins

Margaret Sanger, the founder of what would eventually be called Planned Parenthood (PP), knew the answer to the question of "When does life begin?" (or "When does human life begin?") as early as 1916.

In her autobiography, Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, she wrote,

...abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life.... (emphasis added)

So, why does PP now insist that a human person from conception (zygote) to birth is just a clump of cells?

Well, it's just a clump of cells. If you get it early enough it doesn't even look like a baby.

This quote from Margaret Sanger is telling and prophetic.

No one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable [perhaps to save the life of the mother only?] but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception [Did she think that the point of conception was the moment that a human person's life begins?]. [Contraception] is the only cure for abortions. (emphasis added)

Once one believes that contraception is a cure from pregnancy, their contraceptive mentality will force them to have an abortion (now as the contraception of last resort). They will no longer be free, but a slave to PP (and other things/persons).

Instead of curing the need for abortions, Margaret Sanger's contraception crusade made the demand for abortion skyrocket (and perhaps the reason why abortion is now legal). This is why the American Birth Control League (now PP) is the largest and most profitable (contraceptive) abortion provider ever.

(Some cure, huh?)

"From might to may to must: zero to sixty in a cultural instant."
-Sally Thomas

(Now, abortion is seen as a good.)

The women wearing "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts at the 2004 Democratic National Convention obviously share Mr. Sanger's desire to see the abortion rights argument move to a newly aggressive level.

When Does the Human Soul Develop?

An attempt to answer about the human soul's development. Any suggestions for improvement?

[Pres.] Obama's First 100 Days Parody

See 4:20 for the original text.

Mary Ann Glendon Refuses ND Laetare Medal Award

Mary Ann Glendon agrees that Notre Dame has gone too far in inviting and bestowing a honorary Law doctorate on [President] Aborti... Obama. She will not accept the award.

I guess I should've kept my first request after all to refuse the award from L'Autre Dame (second request). (Peut-être, L'Autre Dame est Margaret Sanger.)