This post is brought to you by some schmuck who took it upon himself during an abortion debate, in which he was distressed that I would legalize late-term abortions, to inform me that there is no such thing as inalienable rights, and that rights are “whatever humans decide they are” and therefore I cannot assert that a mother has rights to a fetus over the fetus itself and over the would-be father. Resisting the urge to tell him to get the hell out of the country, I instead redirected my horror to suggesting that he read the Declaration of Independence.

Let’s get some things straightened out first:

Fetuses are not aborted. Pregnancies are aborted. [will be explained] Giving birth is a method of abortion. The pregnancy is aborted. When a woman who is 8 to 9 months pregnant arrives at a doctor’s office and says, “I don’t want to be pregnant anymore. Make me not pregnant anymore,” the doctor who agrees to abort the pregnancy, whether by triggering an early birth or by surgically removing the baby from the mother, is obligated to abort the pregnancy in such a way that does not interfere with the inalienable right to life of this (newly) independent life-form. The baby can be placed in an incubator and may survive. If it does not, the woman is even less responsible for its death than the doctor. She merely separated the fetus from her body, the same way a doctor can decide not to provide resources to sustain the child’s life if, for example, finances are inadequate. That is why it matters whether a life-form is independent: the method of abortion comes into question. When the life cannot survive outside the womb, the doctor may abort the pregnancy in any fashion. When the life can survive outside the womb, the doctor is obligated to abort the pregnancy by removing the life without harming it. As medical advancements are introduced, this window will become smaller and smaller. The question of whether the life can survive outside the mother does not interfere with a woman’s right to separate a fetus from herself. If you can’t identify the difference between a woman arrested for not feeding her child and a woman not providing for her child by aborting her pregnancy, you’re an idiot. In the former scenario the enforcement of the law does not result in forcing the woman to feed her child—it results in taking the child away and providing it with a guardian who consents to sustaining its life. Likewise in the latter, the child is separated from the woman and cared for by someone—or something—else, like an incubator.

Speaking of consent, its involvement is the definition of an inalienable right. There are two types of rights: inalienable rights and civil rights. Inalienable rights include but are not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (Sound familiar?) You are screwing over your own argument by denying the existence of inalienable rights, like the right of the fetus to live independently. Inalienable rights do not come from government. Civil rights are protected by government.

The right to life is inalienable, but the definition of an inalienable right is one that does not require the consent of another. If it requires consent, it’s not a right. You have the right to live–you do not have the right to survive at the expenses of someone else. Once you are enforcing a right by encroaching on another person, you are no longer practicing an inalienable right but infringing on the rights of that other individual. A civil right may require consent on the most fundamental level, but does not remove the right of the person from whom it requires consent to deny that consent without consequence. (You don’t want to count someone’s vote [civil right] on the basis of sex, race, class, or religion, then [consequently] find another job.)

When the fetus is living off the body of a woman, it is not protected by its inalienable right to life because it is DEPENDING on the woman and on her consent. *Removing* it from her is not *killing* it; it dies on its own because it cannot live. That is why pregnancies are aborted, not fetuses.

And no, having sex is not consenting to being pregnant for nine months. That is not a contract. (You asshat.)

The rights of the father begin at delivery, not conception.

Who’s to say that woman is any more responsible of a fetus dying once she separates it from herself than the person who neglected to invent an incubator that can sustain it? Or refuses to provide it?

Anti-choicers are, because as far as they are concerned, women ARE incubators. Anti-choicers are so sexist that they have INFUSED a woman’s ability sustain life to her person and reduced her to that ability. It is an essentialization of feminine capabilities. Men on the other hand are not reduced to their ability to sustain life—whether monetarily or through organ donations or by providing medical expertise—because anti-choicers are bigots who can only distinguish between a man and his “functions.”

The right to life does not mean someone else sustaining that life. The distinction is only made when the human in question is of the male variety. No one is ever like, “That guy refused his ability to give his organs and totally aborted that patient!” No one ever collapses a man’s abilities with his person.

Just because someone has the ability do so something does NOT mean you can FORCE her to do it and USE that ability for your own purposes. This is true regardless of sex.

Do American women understand the *fundamental level* at which their rights are being violated when the right to an abortion is attacked? If the bodily resources of men were redistributed for the sustenance of others it would be recognized at once as communism.

Anti-choicers are communists, traitors, and a threat to this nation at the most fundamental level–but none of it is viewed truthfully because they only enslave women to the government.

At any stage of a pregnancy it is okay to remove the fetus (or baby) from the womb. That means at nine months, that is *still* okay. The child is likely to survive outside, or it may die, but either outcome is irrelevant: at no stage of a pregnancy is the child *entitled* to the bodily provisions of the mother. You need a person’s consent to live off of them, and when you need consent that means it’s not an inalienable right.

Whether or not you believe it is moral or immoral for a woman to abort a pregnancy at nine months is irrelevant to the foundational principle that she has that right. But I guess no woman ever had her rights recognized without some schmuck crying about how it was right or wrong as if the entire sex with the ability to give birth were long overdue that lecture and it’s his good grace to present it to them. (“Don’t get me wrong he shouldn’t have raped you but it was totally immoral to lead him on like that…”)

The fact that I believe it’s immoral to abort a pregnancy after 120 days when the life of the mother is not in danger (and if the mother is not﻿ providing an incubator for the life to continue) is IRRELEVANT to her right to abort the pregnancy or *separate the child from herself* and to whether the government can interfere with that inalienable right.

The next time you are giving birth announce to the medical staff, “I am aborting the pregnancy now.” Because you are.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

^Look at that; I guess they have an excuse.