Comments by "Theodore Shulman" (@ColonelFredPuntridge) on "The Atlantic"
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The question isn't whether fetuses are live human persons or not. The key question is not what a fetus is. The key question is where it is. If something (anything) is located inside my body, then I'm entitled to kill it or have it killed, no matter what it is. If all the human beings in the whole world were (somehow) inside my body, then I'd be entitled to holocaust them (or kill the ones I don't like and spare the ones I do like). If all the living organisms in the world were (somehow) inside my body, then I'd be entitled to holocaust them. If God were located inside my body, then I'd be entitled to kill God.
Because my body, and everything inside the part of the universe enclosed by my skin, belongs to me. Not to anyone else, not to my government, and not to anyone else's god.
This is also why we don't take transplant-organs or tissues, or even cells, from the bodies of unwilling potential donors. Because the insides of their bodies belong to them.
And it's not a "conflict of rights", either. It's not "the patient's right to control the inside of her body vs the fetus' right to not be killed". Inside the patient's body, there is no right to life for anyone else, unless the patient says there is, and if she does, then that right which she grants only lasts until she changes her mind and withdraws it. As long as you are inside her body, she can switch your right to life on and off like an electric light.
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