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To: Coleus
Here's a secular one.

Place your right heel on the floor and hold your foot at a 45 degree angle, toes upward. Now lower your toes to the floor. It would be silly to tell you that you don't have a right to make that motion with your body. However, now imagine yourself in your car, driving down the street. About half a block ahead of you, an old woman steps into the street and begins to jaywalk. At that moment, you no longer have the right to make that movement with your foot, for doing so will accelerate the car and run over the old woman. Regardless of the fact that she is herself violating the law, you do not have a legal right to take an action (the aforementioned foot movement) which will injure or kill her. In fact, your legal (and moral) obligation is to move your foot to the brake to try and avoid running her down.

So you see, no one has an absolute right to control their body in every situation.

52 posted on 11/08/2002 11:01:06 PM PST by william clark
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To: william clark
Very good! Excellent refutation of quasi-libertarian arguments.

Riddle me this: why is it that the courts can force a man into life support for eighteen years but a woman has a right to terminate life support that would last at most nine months?

54 posted on 11/08/2002 11:58:45 PM PST by MHGinTN
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