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[Zebedeo]

128. You didn't answer the question about women who have had hysterectomies.

Are they disqualified, like men, from expressing opinions concerning abortion, because they are unable to bear children (or to use your terminology, they have no uterus)?

You asked:

Should I have the right to decide what kind of pants I wear tomorrow? Yes. Should I have the right to decide what kind of pants YOU wear tomorrow? ...Do you understand the difference? That's not just a rhetorical question, I'd like to hear the answer.

Answer: Yes. I understand the difference. And in general, I agree with your philosophy that people should have individual autonomy over their own bodies, and the law should proscribe activities, generally speaking, only to the extent that they have the potential to have an adverse effect on OTHER persons. There are some exceptions to this philosophy, but in general I think you and I are on the same page with regard to this principle.

However, people disagree about whether the unborn child is another person. Some say the child is another person. You seem to believe otherwise, or in the alternative, you place the persons who are not yet born into a category that is subject to being killed because they are "wholly dependent upon residing INSIDE the body of another for survival."

If you do not believe that the child who is not born yet is another person, is it because you believe that the child is the SAME person as the mother? Or is it because you believe the child is not a person at all? In either case, I would differ with you, because the child, even from the moment of conception, has a different DNA. The child may in all likelihood have a different blood type than the mother. The child may even be of a different race than the mother. Take our President, for example. Would you say that Barack Obama was the same person as his mother, prior to his birth? Or would you say he was not a person prior to his birth? Was there a point in time at which he became a person (or became a person other than his mother)? What about 5 minutes before his birth? Was he "another person" then?

If you agree that a baby is a person other than his mother prior to his birth, then I think our shared philosophical viewpoint dictates that the issue of whether his mother should have an abortion is an issue in which society as a whole has an interest, and the opinions of members of society are entitled to be expressed - just like the gun control or military action scenarios which you addressed in your post. In other words, it is not just a matter of personal autonomy, because the action of having an abortion does have an adverse effect on another person.

That is not to say that I believe that a woman should not have a choice to obtain an abortion. I have not said that. I am merely saying that I think that persons in this society who do not have uteri should not be disqualified from expressing opinions pertaining to abortion.

By the way, you have been expressing opinions pertaining to abortion. How many uteri do you have?