Would Abortion of a 16-Year-Old be Moral?

I've been watching a show called Kyle XY on NetFlix (spoiler alert if you oh-so-happen to be watching the first season ). In the latest episode that I viewed, it was revealed that a secret company had been artificially making people. They took the sperm and the egg, but used a machine instead of a woman's womb. The machine allowed the person to develop for a much longer time, making the intelligence level superior to everyone else. Kyle (the star) had been in the machine for 16 years. He was not aware at any point in time during the development. Other "subjects" were removed from the machines at earlier times (few years), but they died without the machine. They needed to stay in the machine for 16 years before removal. Kyle was born at 16 years, and looks just like any other 16-year-old. Because of his superior intelligence, he was capable of catching onto everything very quickly and soon was able to exceed society's standards by a great degree.

I thought that this would make an interesting hypothetical situation to present (for pro-choicers, mostly).

Would it be moral to abort the 16-year-old Kyle shortly before viability?
At what point did Kyle become a human being?
At what point does innocent abortion of Kyle become murder?
Was Kyle part of the machine; thus, his rights must have been yielded to it?

 

Well considering he was not inside another person I would say that this isn't really equivalent to abortion at all. It's closer to a person being on life support and it's up to the power of attorney over that person whether or not they should be disconnected from the machines keeping him alive based on whatever they usually base it on, like vegetative state, zero brain function, etc.

If he were inside another person I would say a definite yes because I don't believe a person should be forced to gestate and birth a fetus for 9 months let alone 16 years!

I remember seeing commercials for that show years ago. I might just check it out on Netflix though.

 

Sounds like a really interesting show. Hope it airs here sometime!

To answer the OP, it doesn't really have anything to do with abortion. You wouldn't be killing a 16 year old, you are killing something that has been produced by a machine for the last 16 years.

If you see the machine as being the woman, then yes, it's be fine to get rid of him whenever you pleased.

And now cue the lifers claiming I support the murder of 16 year old boys.

 

No your post really isn't interesting enough to dissect.

Killing a person is wrong. Enough said.

 

you had no choice but to try to shrug it off so as to remain consistent with your support of killing babies. I do applaud you for being consistent in that regard.

 

So brain dead people on life support should remain on life support for as long as possible?

People killed in war is always wrong?

Legal homicides such as self-defense are always wrong?

Your statement is too broad Whaler. Even we know you support the killing of human beings in certain circumstances.

 

What relevance does this have in an abortion thread. Stay on topic.

Again relevance?

I have addressed this before, you know what I meant. Innocent people should not be allowed to be killed by someone just because they want to.

I agree, I should have narrowed it a bit.

 

Who owned the machine and what right did Kyle have to remain in or on the property of the owner of that machine?

 

If the machine created him, would it be moral for the machine to kill him just because it didn't want him?

 

First, I don't hold that all morals should come under the purvue of government. For instance, I think adultery is immoral but it would be immoral to punish it through police powers as punishment would be a violation of the right of the adulterer to associate freely.

That being said, if the machine is not sentient and self-creating, then it is not a moral actor, just as animals are not moral actors. From the OP, I gather that the secret society is the owner of the machine, not that the machine is it's own moral actor. The owners of the machine have the right to expel from it whatever they don't want there, given all other attempts to find another taker or home for the machine occupant. After all, if you invite someone to your house, does he/she have a right to stay after you've asked them to leave? You can't just kill them for trespassing, but you can take whatever steps are necessary to expel them even up to lethal force if all other possibilities are exhausted.

 

You have wondered way off the beaten path through the woods and donw about 200 miles of offroad pig trails on that one. \

If we are going to consider the "humanness" of the machine, there is no need to analyze this at all.

 

Its not a person until its born.

I didn't shrug anything off. It is okay to kill something which isn't born.

Hell yes.

 

You specifically said, "Killing a person is wrong. Enough said." and so...

...that was all I was trying to illustrate, that you do in fact believe killing people is ok in certain circumstances. It was you who came out with that very broad statement, not me.

 

So it wouldn't be considered human if it was never in a woman's womb? Furthermore, if it is not human, it is moral to kill it at demand?

Correct.

That's not a parallel analogy since the human that is being created was never "invited" -- it was forced to be there. Second, you can't ask the human to leave because the human is not aware and (s)he cannot physically leave. Third, if the human does leave, (s)he will die if it is sooner than 16 years, which you knew when you forced them into your house.

Who says that? And how do you define born in the hypothetical situation given in the OP?

What if the human is no longer attached to the machine?

 

It's a fair argument that the human being is "forced" to be there. However, that you force someone into confinement, they cannot then make you responsible for their care if you offer to let them go. Since the fetus/human in the OP cannot consent on their own, someone else would have to be found to give that consent and take care of the fetus/human.

It's a complex subject and one that can only be justly determined through property rights and self-ownership when determining the political response to abortion. Evicting the human from the machine is a moral wrong but just because he was forced in there, I'm no sure that the obligation to have him remain is something that should be punishable by the state.

And, that's your difficulty for choosing to follow libertarian principles. Even if something is wrong by moral standards, it's not necessarily a proper function of government to correct it.

 

If the 16 year old was Justin Bieber, yes.

 

I absolutely agree that morality is not to be legislated merely because that's what's moral. Every law should be implemented for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights. In this case, the argument can be made that the rights of the human in the machine are being deprived. I don't think it would be much of a debate if this was a physically independent person. If I force someone into my house, knowing that he will die if he leaves within 16 years, this certainly does mean I need to keep the person in my house. After all, if you are to say that the state shouldn't get involved in such a case, then I can legally kidnap people and then push them out of my house into a field of knives which would plunge them to death. It's my house... and there's no other way to leave. Just because I forced them to be there, doesn't mean they suddenly have a right to be in my house.

I bring up the machine hypothetical because I thought it would be interesting to know when pro-choicers draw the line -- when they think that a physically dependent person has a right to life. I applaud these people's consistency, but I also find it rather surprising that they would support the killing of 16-year-old humans.

 

So would you agree, then, that the pregnant woman or the incubator of the human that must be incubated for 16 years is a kidnapper? I think that's an extreme stretch. In fact, I think it is the incubated or the fetus that forces itself upon the property owner (the woman who owns her body or the secret society that owns the machine.)

If, indeed, the gist of your story is that the young person is forced into the incubator for 16 years, then yes, there's already a crime committed and I don't think the members of the secret society have property rights that supercede the right of the young person at that point. But pregnancy is not the same thing.

Your right to life in no way can obligate others to provide the means for maintaining your life. That creates a condition of slavery in which your right of self-ownership exceeds their rights.

 

Since my OP is technically not about abortion, I don't want to go too far down that road. I was merely applying your logic of "just because he was forced in there, I'm no sure that the obligation to have him remain is something that should be punishable by the state" -- I wasn't implying that pregnancy is equivalent to kidnapping.

Under that logic, a single mother who owns a 6-month-old can one day decide "I'm sick of this stupid kid!" and stop taking care of the child. So, it should be legal for the mother to drop the 6-month-old off on the street and let the individual hand him/herself from there. She has no obligation to find an adoption agency or anything of a sort if she doesn't want to do it -- it would be slavery to force her to do such.

 

Yes, I know. The questions and answers got a bit out of hand. Sometimes I write faster than I reason Kidnapping is a punishable offense. I think that kidnappers have an obligation not to kill their victim, or it becomes murder.

Going back to your OP, I think the issue is:

1. The Secret Society may be making people, but it is not creating them. Each individual is his own creator.

2. The Secret Society is not kidnapping anyone. It owns the machines in which began the gestation process. Does it then have a obligation, through property ownership, to maintain the machines until that process is complete? If so, why? What property right does the incubated human have to be in that machine without permission of the owner?

Yes, that's right.

Ok. This gets thorny. Rothbard talks about this in the ethics of liberty. Yes, you can stop feeding your child. The fact that you take care of your child imposes no *property* related obligation upon you to continue caring for it so it is not with the just actions of government to force you to care for it. On the other hand, and this might be my own theory and very debatable, not caring for the child, or the act of putting the child into a dangerous place exposes that child to an imminent threat. Creating an imminent threat to other human beings is a violation of their rights and it is incumbent on you to take steps necessary should your actions be creating or likely to create such a threat. In which case, giving the child to someone else who will take care of it (which should not be a difficult thing to do in any case) removes the child from imminent danger.

And again, what may be wrong in human interactions may not necessarily rise to the level of a crime. It's wrong to cheat on your spouse, but it's not a crime. It's wrong to not feed your child, but it's not a crime if you remove the child from the danger of relying on you for food.

Government laws criminalize the selling of children (that is, transferring their care for monetary recompense, not actual sale of their persons) and criminalizes the abandonment of children even if they are abandoned to caring (new) guardians. But, that doesn't make the action criminal, just penalties for exercising natural rights.

 

So who is entitled to their rights -- the maker or the creator?

Just to be clear: do you think the mother must, by law, find someone to provide for the child to protect him/her from imminent danger, or is this just your moral perspective -- that is, it should be legal to dump your 6-month-old child off on the street, but it is morally wrong?

If you think the government should not get involved and finding a caretaker is your moral opinion, then I would applaud your consistency, although I would support a little more law than that myself.

If you think it should be punishable by law to put a 6-month-old in imminent danger, then this would obviously be inconsistent with your standpoint on my hypothetical situation, since that would be implying that you have a legal obligation to secure the life of your child.

 

I'm basing my answers on the fact you said "He was not aware at any point in time during the development."

Yes.

Once he was born, since, according to your OP, his was unaware of himself whilst in the developing thingy, but would die if taken out before 16 years.

When he has self awareness and consciousness.

No on both counts. As much as some pro-choice people contend, a fetus is not a woman's property.

 

And exactly how would you legislate this?

 

Legislate what, exactly?

 

Consciousness as the threshold to be protected from homicide.