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by Free Market Duck

Scientists slap Bible Bangers' definition of "when does life begin?" upside their diploid totipotent cells
(Jun 7, 2007)

Washington, DC – As we have stated over and over at this free market Web Site, the moral argument for individual private property rights of the woman (superseding the alleged rights of the fetus) in the abortion issue is the same moral argument for individual private property rights in stem cell research.  The key point in establishing a code of individual rights ethics in both of these issues is the determination of (or choosing as an axiomatic primary) when does constitutionally-protected life begin?

   We at FM Duck have chosen that point as when the fetus' umbilical cord has been separated from the mother.  We further define individual rights as socio-political-economic rights of two or more individuals not living in a symbiotic parasitical relationship.  Under this definition, a mother and her unborn fetus are not separate individuals and thus the mother's private property rights to her own body supersede.

   Most Judeo-Christians and some members of the U.S. Supreme Court, having no logically-reasoned code of moral philosophy and basing their morality upon the voodoo ethics of "faith-based reasoning" -- an oxymoron at best -- consistently fall back upon the Catholic Church's premise that life begins at conception of sperm and egg after a night of conjugal frivolity, or at least ecumenical duty.  They then run into both the biological AND moral contradiction that the life of the fetus is constitutionally-protected -- without defining what constitutes an "individual" or "individual rights" -- and end up stripping the mother of all of her private property rights to her own body during nine months of pregnancy.

   In the Church's contradictory definition of "life," the fetus obtains individual rights while the mother loses her individual rights.  Thus, if the mother becomes pregnant through rape or incest, or her fetus develops unwanted syndromes, or the mother's health becomes impaired, she has no individual rights -- under the Church's code of ethics -- to remedy her situation through exercising her now defunct private property rights over her own body.

   Most Libertarians would argue that their definition of when life becomes constitutionally-protected -- i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut to produce two separate individuals -- is a more rational definition than the the Church's definition of "at conception."

   Let's compare the two.

   The Libertarian definition not only protects the mother's inherent individual rights, it allows her to choose the direction of what is still part of her own biological DNA, her own cells, her own fetus, in the same way that she controls the rest of her body by choice of diet, activity, preventive health maintenance, and all of her other inherent freedoms of voluntary association, travel, trade, speech, and religion.

   And, what is becoming increasingly important as we just discovered in yesterday's scientific breakthrough of regenerating or "coaxing" differentiated skin cells back to undifferentiated totally potent cells (diploid totipotent cells capable of generating all other organs such as hearts, livers, kidneys, etc.), it is rapidly becoming very important to establish a rational moral definition of "when life begins" so we can rationally define individual private property rights for cloning our own organs.

   The Church's definition of "life begins at conception" does not answer the following questions, and thus leaves us morally and litigiously hanging in limbo.  "What is conception?"  Is cloning in the laboratory "conception?"  If the cloned embryo is transplanted into a woman, is that "conception?"  If a skin cell is transgenerated back into a totipotent cell and thence into a sperm or egg cell (a haploid gametogenous cell) or into a transplantable organ growing in the lab or within an individual's partially or totally cloned body, is that the "start of life" or "conception?"

   All of these questions are easily answered, biologically, ethically, and litigiously, by the Libertarian definition of a woman's private property rights superseding the alleged rights of the fetus until the umbilical cord is cut.  None of these questions are answered in any rational or consistent manner by the Church's (or major religions') contradictory definition which denies a woman inherent private property rights to her own body while attempting to establish individual rights for her fetus -- usually through a power of attorney via the collectivist state.

   The importance of establishing a logical code of moral ethics to protect a woman's -- and all individuals' rights qua individuals, not as biologically-dependent fetuses still in the womb -- is becoming increasingly important (oh yoo-hoo, Supreme Court, can you hear me?) as bio-technology rapidly unravels the mysteries of the genome.  This code of ethics does not, of course, include federal subsidies since forced taxation for embryonic or any other research violates many individuals' religious beliefs as well as their wallets.  Obviously, all research belongs in the free market and private enterprise. -- FM Duck

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