Abortion
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.While the fetus is attached to the mother, it’s her property and she is free to do what she wants with it. Therefore, she can abort the baby at any time prior to being born and the umbilical being but, at which point the baby is an independent person.
(John)
If the baby is a person, the mother has a responsibility to it. She can’t just be allowed to kill it. That makes no sense.
(Danny)
Physical (in)dependence isn’t a valid yardstick because it does not confer rights. The only thing that confers rights to an organism is personhood.
Building on #123, cutting the umbilical does not make the baby an “independent person”. The baby still depends on the parents physically, financially, emotionally, etc.
This mistake strikes me as an instance of the wider mistake of granting or withholding rights based on physical differences.
Obligations to care for another person seem illiberal and coercive.
(John)
Obligations are only coercive if they are unchosen. People know that sex can result in pregnancy.
More generally, when you take an action that you know (or should know) can result in some obligation, then that obligation is not unchosen.
Fudging unchosen and chosen obligations is why some of the pro-abortion crowd strike me as people who just want to be able to act without consequence or responsibility. Similar to other women’s ‘rights’ issues (which aren’t about rights but special treatment and privileges).
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.