Forced to come to the aid of Nikhil. One shudders. Ahh well ... here goes:One may delineate abortion as "murder" (I have no problem with this. I am Catholic, after all). In the same sense, menstration is murder, i.e. the deliberate execution (through a neglect to fornicate) of a potential life. A menstrated egg is a life not lived, a child not born, a beautiful expression of God's grace unfulfilled in this wicked, heartless world, etc. etc. etc. ...
In any case, legislated murder is perfectly legal, under presently understood codes of ethics. The Pope himself has established moral guidelines, called the "just war theory" I believe, that allow one to slay (within certain constraints) those that are acting in a manner dangerous to the public weal. But I digress.
The issue here is not one of justifiable murder (where Mr. Jaikumar might find himself on slippery ground) but one of boundaries, and the rights that individuals have to the use that their organic form is put to. Thus, although I may need a kidney to live, I have no right to demand one from my blood relatives. The donation, if there is to be one, must be willing. (I have heard that "legislators" in Communist China feel differently, but this is not the matter under discussion. We are assuming a certain minimal level of civilization, after all).
What one might be able to say is that, were a hospital willing to assume the costs of caring for an exceptionally premature infant, that the mother has no right to have the proto-child executed. Since hospitals are not likely to be so benevolent (this issue, on both sides, is primarily about money) we can pretty much write off this portion of the debate, at present. It would be interesting, of course, to see the spectacle of such an institution of healing salvage, raise, and bring to adulthood such a fetus, all the time fending off legal pleas by the abortive mother to have the little beggar euthanized. Also, would the hospital try to establish property rights over such a person? Could the parents be forced to pay the considerable costs of care delivered by said institution? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
But no, one cannot force a mother to carry her child. That simply is the critical issue of debate. Otherwise, we enslave the real to the potential, which I cannot see as being defensible.
"Doc" Cruel
None.
