The Supremes and the New Texas Abortion Law
Ah, the Law. The Law! I go to its altar nearly every day, as I went to another when an altar boy, long ago--to the altar of God, who gives joy to my youth (Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam).
Well, I'm not sure service at either altar is a joyful affair, and my youth is long past. But though my reverence for the law is profound, it has no religious foundation. So, this post doesn't appear in the Philosophy of Religion category, though some would say religion has much to do with abortion; not does it appear in Ethics, though ethical issues are raised by abortion; nor does it appear in the Philosophy of Law category (I still don't know what the philosophy of law is supposed to be), though a law certainly is at at stake. So, I've chosen the Political Philosophy category, as it can be said to be a kind of philosophical smorgasbord.
Generally, the Texas law in question prohibits abortions after six weeks--which I've heard described as after a fetal heartbeat is detected (which I've also heard may be when a woman isn't aware she is pregnant). It also authorizes private citizens to take legal action against anyone "aiding or abetting" abortions which are prohibited by the law.
The Justices of the Supreme Court of our Great Republic ("the Supremes") have decided on a 5-4 vote not to grant an injunction staying enforcement of the law. That means it is in effect until such time as it isn't. The majority acknowledges serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the law have been raised by those petitioning for injunctive relief, but insist there are many complex and significant questions of jurisdiction and procedure which must be resolved and the petitioners haven't met the high burden of proof required to obtain an objection.
I'm normally a shy, humble sort, but despite that will say that the reasons given for the majority's decision not to act is bullshit of an order seldom achieved by any court of which I'm aware. It appears clear that the decision is a mechanism by which the Supremes may avoid addressing those serious constitutional issues while allowing a law about which there are serious constitutional questions to be enforced--not merely by the state, but by anyone who is inclined to act as a private attorney general or D.A. Who can doubt that such people exist and are ready to act, especially in these dark times?
I think this decision is craven--it's a cowardly abdication of responsibility in these circumstances. I think it should be characterized as craven by anyone, regardless of their feelings on abortion. And, given the composition of the court, that such decisions are likely to be repeated whenever a law that is constitutionally questionable but politically or socially agreeable to the Justices is before them.
Well, I'm not sure service at either altar is a joyful affair, and my youth is long past. But though my reverence for the law is profound, it has no religious foundation. So, this post doesn't appear in the Philosophy of Religion category, though some would say religion has much to do with abortion; not does it appear in Ethics, though ethical issues are raised by abortion; nor does it appear in the Philosophy of Law category (I still don't know what the philosophy of law is supposed to be), though a law certainly is at at stake. So, I've chosen the Political Philosophy category, as it can be said to be a kind of philosophical smorgasbord.
Generally, the Texas law in question prohibits abortions after six weeks--which I've heard described as after a fetal heartbeat is detected (which I've also heard may be when a woman isn't aware she is pregnant). It also authorizes private citizens to take legal action against anyone "aiding or abetting" abortions which are prohibited by the law.
The Justices of the Supreme Court of our Great Republic ("the Supremes") have decided on a 5-4 vote not to grant an injunction staying enforcement of the law. That means it is in effect until such time as it isn't. The majority acknowledges serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the law have been raised by those petitioning for injunctive relief, but insist there are many complex and significant questions of jurisdiction and procedure which must be resolved and the petitioners haven't met the high burden of proof required to obtain an objection.
I'm normally a shy, humble sort, but despite that will say that the reasons given for the majority's decision not to act is bullshit of an order seldom achieved by any court of which I'm aware. It appears clear that the decision is a mechanism by which the Supremes may avoid addressing those serious constitutional issues while allowing a law about which there are serious constitutional questions to be enforced--not merely by the state, but by anyone who is inclined to act as a private attorney general or D.A. Who can doubt that such people exist and are ready to act, especially in these dark times?
I think this decision is craven--it's a cowardly abdication of responsibility in these circumstances. I think it should be characterized as craven by anyone, regardless of their feelings on abortion. And, given the composition of the court, that such decisions are likely to be repeated whenever a law that is constitutionally questionable but politically or socially agreeable to the Justices is before them.
Comments (333)
:100: :up:
Institutions and individuals have been forfeiting their credibility for a long time now. The Supremes lost it on Bush v. Gore, as far as I'm concerned. I fantasize about the day the court holds me in contempt, and then allows me to say "But your honors, there is no need to hold me there. I am in contempt of you and I'm in good company. You've earned it!" I'll write you from my jail cell if they let me have a 'puter. :grin:
Anyway, we might have to spin up an underground railroad for the womens. Fuck Texas, and fuck the Supreme Court.
This is unbelievable but yes, I don't doubt for one minute that 'such people exist'.
I've been reading about it in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/02/us-supreme-court-refuses-to-block-radical-texas-abortion-law
Quoting Ciceronianus
Yes - see my added bolds in excerpt. That's the scary bit - the composition of the Supreme Court. Who the hell knows what's coming next - and what can be done about it ? Absolutely nothing ?
If they want to have a race to the bottom, I suppose we could teach them a lesson.
Yeah, but the Taliban doesn't let women go strapped.
Yeah, keep those women defenseless, reliant upon men. You know, like the Texas legislature.
There are statutes allowing for enforcement by private citizens in certain circumstances, yes. However, they're generally premised on the fact the prohibited conduct poses a risk to or a limitation on the rights of those granted the authority to enforce the law. Open government laws, environmental laws as you point out.
Abortions won't pose a risk to or threaten private citizens who seek to enforce this Texas law, however. It may offend them, they may think it unethical or a violation of God's laws, they may think it's murder, but we don't (or haven't) granted private citizens the right to prosecute others for murder or for religious or philosophical reasons. Perhaps Texas is nostalgic for the days of the vigilantes.
Yes, though property and money were at issue then.
:chin:
Perhaps the early death rattle of the republic. The court is packed, the Senate unresponsive to the majority, and a temporary allocation of power to those who see the end written on the wall. The only avenues left are delay, procedural frustration, rallying the base, and driving the opposition to non-participation (due to hopelessness, numbness, or short attention span).
Unsigned Order
So the state hands some private citizen its stick with which to beat other private citizens and then claims that is not using the stick and so cannot be enjoined. And the Supremes say that they cannot enjoin the mechanism by which the stick is used, even though the state is actually the entity responsible for the functioning of the stick (courts entering judgment and then using governmental process to enforce such judgment). This is procedural due process run amok and spitting in the face of substantive due process. Everyone sees that the outcome is unconstitutional (state interference with protected right without using a narrowly tailored policy to achieve a compelling governmental purpose), but they will just look the other way until such time as the proper procedure is used. It is almost like having to name Rumpelstiltskin to save your baby.
For those keeping score at home, by way of quick reading. Personal jurisdiction is the Court's ability to bind parties to a litigation to the authority of the court and make them do whatever the court orders. What this unsigned order seems to suggest is that where the court cannot make the defendants do what the plaintiffs ask, there is a lack of personal jurisdiction.
This is not a criminal law, correct? That being the case, abortions have not been banned, but abortion clinics will be subject to potential civil penalty in the event they are successfully sued.
The question then becomes one of immediate harm that would warrant injunctive relief. Abortion clinics may continue to operate in Texas, and they will no doubt be sued, but any judgment would be appealable on the basis of the Constitutional violation, meaning no actual judgment could be enforced prior to the Court eventually ruling.
This is distinct from a criminal matter where an abortion clinic doctor would be immediately incarcerated for performing an abortion and the matter would immediately find its way in the courts. In a criminal law scenario, an abortion clinic could be raided and shut down by the government, but that is not the case here
I recognize the denial of the injunctive relief places the abortion clinics in peril because they may one day be assessed significant monetary penalty if the law is upheld, but, as a highly technical matter, the denial of injunctive relief prior to the adjudication of the legal matter on its merits is not that uncommon. Whether the litigants are placed in immediate harm due to fear that Roe v. Wade might be overturned and the civil law upheld is that technical question that at least gives some colorable basis for denial of the injunctive relief.
The outrage is likely more due to the signaling that Roe v. Wade might soon be overturned and what is now considered a civil right is going to be removed. But should this have been a law of a different sort granting a new form of civil remedy, I'm not sure it would be so surprising if the injunctive relief was denied.
In any event, this procedural moment will be a minor footnote in history if Roe v. Wade is squarely overturned. The need for such complicated schemes to limit abortions will not need to be made.
And for the record, I am pro-choice, but just trying to make sense out of the situation.
One would think, but then it wasn't. They punted because the "right" party wasn't named even though it is the state that enforces private rights of action. It is like the court now expects people to bring claims against a class of defendants in anticipation of the defendants maybe doing something. So far as I know, actions against a class of defendants are a non-starter. The only way to actually get the injunction is potentially to play whack a mole with actual people who have brought suit (the "plaintiff") and hope that the Supremes will still decide the case even after the plaintiff drops the suit and alleges mootness.
Agreed. That is a distinction with a relevant difference. Also, those other laws usually required a failure of the Administration to step up and enforce, first.
As to vigilantes, I could be wrong but I recollect some reading that the originals, in CA, shortly after the gold rush started in the 1850s, were first spun up to counter wife beating. The men in the community would gather and have a little wall-to-wall counseling with the offender. If that didn't work, well, let's just say that "lynching" doesn't necessarily have to be a southern or a racist thing. It has a long history out west, for white people. A neck tie party. Their mission expanded beyond wife beating of course, but I guess that is where it started.
If true, then I find it interesting that the men of old used to use vigilante justice to protect women's rights. Some Texas men have fallen from that regard.
Oh well, as someone opined on the Afghanistan thread, some women like it. I noticed Texas put all their female legislators out front for the signing. Kind of like Republicans always sprinkling women and blacks and Hispanics in their photo ops. Are there a few legit? Sure. But we all know signaling when we see it.
A tweet I read said:
"When the penalty for aborting after rape is more sever than the penalty for rape, then you know it's a war on women." mohamad safa.
And another:
"End the filibuster. Expand the Supreme Court. Break the glass and pull the alarm because this is a fucking emergency." Andy Richtor
I think I agree, and it's not just the Texas deal. I think I will emphasize: It's not just the Texas deal. I think it's time. To hell with the potential future scenario when it's used against us. The one way to guarantee that future is to not do it now. They give no quarter. If we do it, they may never sit again. I'd be willing to risk it. I know, it's not up to me and it's not just my ass on the line. But it's my opinion.
The Supremes and the New Texas Abortion Law
It's not the death rattle of the Republic. Progressive policy and practice (in the US and everywhere else) is generally an uphill battle, with only a chance that Virtue will be victorious in the next election.
We without long memory (having not read much history) see current problems as exceptions. What look like exceptions may be rules. That our economic system (capitalism) is based on exploitation in order to maximize profit or stockholders, is a rule that produced a lot of suffering, and has been doing this since before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Women won universal suffrage only 100 years ago, after a 72 year struggle (1849 to 1920). Blacks were emancipated in 1863, but were legally suppressed for another century, and even then they did not gain real equality. They still haven't.
Most people are working class, but the quality of life for working class people, men and women, has never been great -- workers have rarely had enough power to gain good wages, decent working conditions, and ancillary benefits for working families. The American founders owned slaves, true enough, but they also considered "poor working white people" as white trash. That attitude has prevailed since Plymouth Rock.
So, in every generation we see things that make us think of Republic Death Rattles. What looks like the 'end times' ("it can't get any worse than this!") is just business as usual. Look, the Republic doesn't exist to serve you. Be grateful for crumbs, but the Republic is built around providing the ways and means for the wealthy. Its health is robust.
What to do about it? A revolution, like as not.
Picture a law giving a private right to any person to sue another for maintaining/opening a building in which another person practices Christianity where there is a statutory award (regardless of harm/damages) of no less than $10,000 plus costs/fees. Do you see the Supremes enjoining the state from allowing such cases to be prosecuted within the state courts pending the ruling on the Constitutionality of the law?
Fetal Heart Beat Bill Text: TX SB8
I hear you BC, the apocalypse is just round the corner. "BUT THIS TIME IT IS DIFFERENT!"
There are times where cynicism is warranted and there are times where we have had armed groups march on the capitol to be welcomed by the outgoing minority party. You can decide whether the alarm bells are ringing or we are just mishearing the sound of the close of day at the stock exchange.
Dammit. You're making me read and interpret a law without being paid for doing so.
Quoting Hanover
In all honesty, I'm not sure what the hell it is. It's worded as a criminal law would be, I think. But it reads as though a criminal law was drafted initially, but then altered to make it enforceable by private citizens, but as much of a law as would impose a fine for prohibited conduct as it could otherwise be.
Quoting Hanover
According to the law:
"a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an
abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal
heartbeat for the unborn child as required by Section 171.203 or
failed to perform a test to detect a fetal heartbeat."
I find the summary of the law by the House Research Organization of the Texas House of Representatives more readable than the law itself. The summary seems accurate on a quick review of the text (if I'm looking at the right text--I'm not sure what an "Enrolled" law is in Texas. According to the HRO:
"SB 8 would establish the Texas Heartbeat Act, which would prohibit a
physician from performing an abortion on a woman who was pregnant
with an unborn child who had a detectable fetal heartbeat. The bill would
require a physician, before an abortion was performed, to conduct a test to
determine whether a fetal heartbeat was detected."
"Under the bill, a physician could not
knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the
physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child or failed to
perform a test to detect a fetal heartbeat. A physician would not violate
this provision if the physician did not detect a fetal heartbeat while
performing the required test."
However, according to the HRO:
"No enforcement of provisions
relating to the detection of a fetal heartbeat or of certain Penal Code
provisions in response to violations of the bill could be taken or threatened
by the state, a political subdivision, a district or county attorney, or an
executive or administrative officer or employee of the state or a political
subdivision against any person, except as provided in the bill."
But, says the HRO:
"The bill would authorize any person,
other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in
the state, to bring a civil action against any person who:
? performed or induced an abortion in violation of the bill's
provisions;
? knowingly engaged in conduct that aided or abetted the
performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or
reimbursing the abortion costs through insurance or otherwise,
regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that
the abortion would be performed or induced in violation; or
? intended to engage in the conduct described above.
The bill would allow a person to bring a civil action until the sixth
anniversary of the date the cause of action accrued." (I've seen "fourth anniversary date" as well, somewhere).
The text of the law provides that a successful private enforcer of the law would be entitled to:
"(1) Injunctive relief sufficient to prevent the
defendant from violating this subchapter or engaging in acts that
aid or abet violations of this subchapter;
(2) Statutory damages in an amount of not less than
$10,000 for each abortion that the defendant performed or induced
in violation of this subchapter, and for each abortion performed or
induced in violation of this subchapter that the defendant aided or
abetted; and
(3) Costs and attorney ’s fees."
But, according to the HRO: "A court could not award costs or attorney's fees under the Texas Rules of
Civil Procedure or any other rule adopted by the supreme court to a
defendant in a civil action." Also: "Any person, including an entity, attorney, or law
firm, who sought declaratory or injunctive relief to prevent this state from
enforcing certain laws that regulate or restrict abortion would be jointly
and severally liable to pay the costs and attorney's fees of the prevailing
party, as defined in the bill."
In addition:
"SB 8 would prevail over any conflicting law. The state would
have sovereign immunity, a political subdivision would have
governmental immunity, and each officer and employee of the state or a
political subdivision would have official immunity in any action, claim, or
counterclaim or other type of legal action that challenged the validity of
Health and Safety Code ch. 171 or its application."
A complicated bit of legal draftsmanship.
Quoting Hanover
Well, where I come from, judgments may be enforced even on appeal unless a court rules otherwise. So it may be that such relief would have to be sought--and who could say what court would stay enforcement of a judgment under a law the enforcement of which the Supremes refused to stay?
You may read the law and come to your own conclusions, but it seems to me to be drafted in such a manner (by prohibiting award of attorney's fees to defendants, making defense lawyers liable for costs and fees, by limiting affirmative defenses which may be raised, putting the burden of proof on the defendant, and other means) that an action to enforce the law will be very difficult in not impossible to defend against.
My primary quarrel with the Supremes is their failure to act.
So if the defendant wins, he can't get his court costs paid by the person who brought the case, but if the defendant loses, he has to pay the court costs of the person who brought the case?
No I don't think that's the case. The defendant can't obtain reimbursement for the defendant's costs and fees if the defendant manages to prevail, though.
Well, aren't women's bodies (property) and civil penalties (money) at issue now? "The state's interest" in protecting the property rights of slavers (fetuses), I think, has been codified in effect ever since Roe vs Wade, which is why Congress needs to enact legistlation in order to enshrine in a Federal statute (The Gilead Amendment) as a civil right a separation of womb and state.
How will this happen? End the jim crow filibuster. The Dems have to end it this fall. (Fuck Joe Manchin!) If they don't, then they will almost certainly lose their governing majority in the 2022 midterms.
I don't remember that much, but I thought there were some things the courts found to be solely within their wheelhouse, and the legislative and executive branch lacked jurisdiction to encroach into those areas. You would think that costs and fees would be in there. Or the court could could order some relief in equity. Maybe not. I knew the courts were emasculated but I didn't know how much.
It also doesn't help that the Dems continue to insist on showing up to gunfights with a plastic butter knife.
Quoting Benkei
Here's a quick shoot-out 21st Century solution.
Quoting Guardian article: abortion whistleblower website flooded
All very well. But that kind of action can work both ways. And there are probable work-arounds.
Where is the coordination between appalled people on the ground, political/legal activism and good journalism to block this ? What is Biden doing ?
This reminds me so much of how Trump got into power in the first place.
The sense that the wrecking ball is swinging and nothing can stop it...
Also maybe Americans will come to realize the supreme court as an institution is a vile, anti-democratic house of shit, no matter who sits on it, but more probably liberals will take the line that no actually it's just one or two (5?) bad apples nominated by Republicans. As if the entire institution isn't a fucking sham that occasionally dangles some cultural compromise like meth to keep the economic serfs at bay.
This isn't correct on a couple of levels, the first being that life for a woman in Afghanistan bears little resemblance for life as a woman in the US, with likely 0% of the US women wishing Taliban policies would be instituted in the US upon them.
The other being that I take the pro-life folks at their word that their concern is over fetal rights and not a desire to subjugate women. Every reasonable person within the abortion debate places some limit on when abortions can occur based upon the belief at some point the fetus does have protectable rights. The fact that you place that number at 3 months (or whenever) and Texas at 6 weeks is an important distinction, but it doesn't make them hateful and fucked up.
Some Republican state like Texas should pass a law prohibiting abortion and the Court could rule that abortion is a protected right under the Constitution and they could call that case Roe v. Wade. That'll teach em.
Nah, this kinda stuff has nothing to do with the life of children. It's just punishment for women who have sex. That's it. It's pretty straightforward misogyny. Anyone who thinks these people have any concern for children has not looked paid any attention to how they treat children. Except "I fucking hate women and hope they are miserable forever if they enjoy themselves even slightly" is a harder sell than "I like unborn children".
Quoting Hanover
Also of course this is entirely untrue. Or at least, you just need to substitute one woman hating religion for another. Everything else is cosmetic.
Vigilantism. Away from democracy.
How to stop a world-wide wrecking ball ?
This law might galvanise some. However, it's not just about women's freedom.
The domino effect is scary in its speed to topple rights not just in America.
***
In the UK, after the Supreme Court decided that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful * , the Tories sought revenge and change. Not sure the current state of play but I seem to recall the desire was to follow the American model.
( * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_controversy )
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/15/supreme-court-plans-an-attack-on-independent-judicary-says-labour
Quoting The Guardian
The mindset, models and methods of Republicans and Tories - seem to be overpowering and gaining momentum.
This is just the start.
Voter suppression. The stilling of voices. Will it work again ?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/04/millions-in-uk-face-disenfranchisement-under-voter-id-plans
It's not unusual for a statute to provide for an award of attorney's fees to a successful litigant in what are normal laws in which private citizens have been given a right to sue as "private attorney generals."
But this law can fairly be characterized as a grotesque parody of such laws, cynically adopted to grant standing to sue where it normally wouldn't exist, imposing a statutory minimum for damages to be awarded (more a fine or forfeiture than actual damages, which would have to be proved), and hamstringing the possibility of a defense if not precluding one ab initio.
There's something loathsome about this law; something disturbing about its contrivance.
That's not what the people say who oppose abortion, so you've psychoanalyzed them all, including the women who hold that position and determined them all liars?
This is a really weak position you've taken, which is to dismiss the arguments as lies and refuse to consider them on the merits. I can say that I would object to an abortion at 8 months. Do I hate women?
Quoting StreetlightX
You're now submitting that life for women in the US is as oppressive as it is soon to be under Taliban rule. This is just empirically false, so I don't see this as even ripe for philosophical debate.
No, because only morons take these people at their word when you can simply look at what they do. The faux 'how could you!' tone of your post is hilarious. It's like asking Nazis if they want to exterminate Jews and then being shocked that someone isn't taking them at their word when they say no. The only idiot is the person who is shocked. You don't need psychoanalysis. Just eyes. These people hate women, and pleasure'd-up, independent women most of all.
The onus is really on those who want to take them seriously. Demonstrate what support and measures they take to support children and women. Good luck finding anything other than punitive measures. The 'they care about children' sthick is simply a lie, believed only by the most stupid.
Did anyone demand that the Taliban be psychoanalyzed when they said they'd turned over a new leaf? No. Why? Because you'd have to be a fucking dipshit to believe them. As is anyone who think American ISIS care about children.
It's just a worthless ad hom argument. Even if the ad hom attacks were correct it would have no bearing on whether there were legitimate grounds to regulate abortion.
But to the extent you wish your ad homs to be taken seriously, no, there is nothing similar with those who oppose abortion and those who systematically attempted to eradicate the Jews. I don't follow why you ridicule Mullahs, but maybe it's just to engage in a rant against every religion you can think of.
But, as I said before, exceptionally poor posting.
There is no debate about regulating abortion, and especially not in the US, a fundamentalist regime of extremism and misogyny. Abortion is irrelevant to these people. The only relevant debate is how much these people want to punish women for being independent and pleasure-seeking. Again, the onus is on anyone who wants to take these people at their word. They care about children? Prove it. Because every action of theirs has one effective result only: to punish women. Prove otherwise.
It's irrelevant if their objective is to punish women or if they are the most honorable among us. Either there is a sound basis for regulating abortion under a trimester basis or not, regardless of who says it.
It certainly isn't irrelevant to the women whose lives are continually ruined by these laws. But sure, treat it as a cute little academic debate while taking the word of fundamentalist misogynists for granted.
:100: I can understand attorney fees, but court fees and costs should be within the sole province of the courts. Maybe they let the legislature tell them how to administer themselves.
It is certainly irrelevant to this discussion, and I will continue to treat this as philosophical debate, as I'd have hoped you would have.
Quoting Hanover
Why do you think it's a flame? Sorry that the white people get a pass from you.
But you're right it's probably not fair to compare the Taliban to a room of ruthless motherfuckers like the Texas legislature. Who sic bounty hunters who can self-deputize upon women who are made to fear every living person they see in the case of an unwanted pregnancy.
[quote=Horace Mann]Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.[/quote]
It would be wrong for the pro-life movement to ban abortions if they knew souls didn't exist and it would also be wrong for the pro-choice camp to make abortion legal if they knew there were souls. Since neither of them possess that key piece of information, neither can be blamed for their demands. They're both in the dark - expect some fumbling, stumbling, falls, cuts and bruises, the ongoing Texas circus show is just another way ignorance manifests itself.
Agreed. Loathsome and disturbing but how was it contrived, allowed to pass - what was the process ?
Quoting The Guardian - Republicans in 6 states rush to imitate
So, where is the counter-balance ?
The domino effect happening...at speed.
Good to see some fight back. But serious work needs to be done to address the system, doesn't it ?
See Criticism of the Supreme Court
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Criticism
Just one example:
Quoting Wiki - the Supreme Court of the US
Should we even believe your claims to care about the women of Texas? Or should we look at what you do? Which is what exactly?
Maybe you can explain to us what you yelling at @Hanover from the other side of the world does to help the women of Texas.
This isn't what this law is though. This law allows random citizens to sue someone $10,000 for driving a woman to an abortion clinic, and doesn't reimburse defendants for their legal fees even if they win the case.
But it's not just the two of them at each other across the divide, is it ?
This heated argument divides others as per extremism.
It continues the distraction from the core problem.
As I see it, the setting of a worrying legal precedent.
Eyes are taken off the ball.
Attention needs to be paid as per @Ciceronianus ''s concerns.
Quoting Ciceronianus
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/30/abortion-law-federal-court-decision-texas
Hey Hano was the one who got mad at me for not taking a bunch of degenerate woman haters with the seriousness and dignity they deserve.
I figured that setting bounties on women is like, a pretty good case for that, but apprently no, we have to believe that these really are good hearted but maybe misdirected folks. And not like, American ISIS. Which they are. Yallqueda fundamentalists.
Quoting Hanover
Yeah, I see what you mean. How dare he!
Well at least the women of Texas have you to thank for -- what was it again?
Nothing, like anything anyone does here, which you know perfectly well, you posturing high-horse'd git.
This kind of low hanging rubbish ought to be beneath you. How disappointing it isn't.
This just scrolled by elsewhere ... :)
[tweet]https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1433416836960464898[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1433416836960464898
Afghan women are immiserated to the degree that the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. Nothing expresses the sanctity of life and the love of children like the highest child mortality rate on the globe.
Always a pleasure. Cheers!
That's what I think I've been saying. It doesn't mean the defendant would have to pay the plaintiff's costs and fees if the plaintiff loses, though.
Well, one can insist that their demands, if they result in the adoption of laws, comport with the Constitution. That legal issue will remain as long as the Constitution is around regardless of whether souls exist. even if the Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Dominions, and all the Powers of Heaven proclaim that they do.
I assume Roe will be overturned eventually. A woman in Texas could still get a legal and safe abortion if that happened. She just has to collect the money for a bus ride to Buffalo.
Well-heeled and influential fanatics, convinced of the righteousness of their cause, will always find venal politicians who will do their bidding--whatever it may be--in return for their support.
I'd like these caring and law abiding Texans to also likewise take care of these children born out of necessity.
I mean, who's going to look after these children if they won't have a loving and caring mother or father?
Well, that may be the result if the pro-life folks and their politicians and judges are satisfied with "merely" over-turning Roe. It seems to me that the right-wing is increasing inclined to use government power to impose their will on us all, and it may want to flex its muscles.
Yeah. Native Americans on the east coast used Mayapple leaves to induce abortion. If you could fit that into your epic, that would bring some authentic North American flavor to it.
Also, this is a good book on the rise of rightism:
Wendy Brown book
I'm not sure if this is a real invitation or just hand-waving.
So a woman's right to choose hinges on "protecting fetal life after viability" and nothing more. The state's ability to regulate a woman's health is simply taken for granted so long as a desired course of action involves a greater risk of death than whatever the state prefers ("With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the "compelling" point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 149, that, until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health.")
What you might notice in both of these lines of reasoning is that as medical knowledge changes and risks of birth or moments of viability changes, a woman's right to choose is expanded or contracted. "We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified, and must be considered against important state interests in regulation." So is Roe about choice? Hell no. It is about a balancing act between when the state can dictate paternalism for the woman and opening the door to forced birth the moment viability is pushed back to conception. It is a worthless case and people should be ashamed to hang their hats on it for anything other than pragmatic reasons (it allowed choice and so far no challenge has moved the viability needle back in time).
Yes.This much I know.
I want to know more details about this particular 'legal' process but I guess I can look elsewhere.
In the meantime:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/03/republicans-texas-abortion-right-democracy
Quoting Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging
Final paragraph: A big 'If...'
https://www.livescience.com/65501-fetal-heartbeat-at-6-weeks-explained.html
Quoting Livescience - fetal heartbeat explained
For your erudition.
Already erudited :smile:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/588934
But you said it simpler.
Easier to see and click :100: :sparkle:
Gosh that's terrible. Imagine if the US was running the place for the last twenty years.
Oh wait.
The constitution can't overrule facts. If souls are real, the constitution be damned! The constitution, any constitution, must be in line with the truth, no? If not, we would be living in a fantasy world and our problems will multply and/or worsen. Sorry if this comes off as rude, it isn't intended to be.
Women are loosing ground on our own soil, we’re certainly not going to help empower them anywhere else.
Re: the domino effect of violence and lies; the wrecking ball of Trump's Big Lie.
The name Cawthorn keeps coming up.
As a follow-up and because I don't want to add to this thread or start another one:
I posted something in the 'Shoutbox'.
'Wake up, America !' - another Guardian article.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/589458
Still doesn't make sense. It needs to be something like: Americans will apply what they learned from the Taliban to American women. But that doesn't make sense either. The US military has lots of women in it.
Quoting Dave Barnhart (2018)
I have a feeling many females I know would look into moving if living in Texas.
A quick google search says around 14%. In the top ranks only 7%. So better for cannon fodder than leadership, apparently.
I never served. My wife had a female student who enlisted and was deployed to Afghanistan. One night she was knocked unconscious and raped, most likely by an American soldier. Suffers permanent brain damage.
I know of a similar case but Dubai, U.S. Air Force, fellow airman, no brain damage.
Everyone should go watch the movie Platoon. It is evidence of the fragility of democracy when Sgt. Elias is killed, leaving it to an airstrike on our own positions to create an opening for Chris to shoot Barnes. I’m just naïve enough to think our ranks are full of Sgt. Elias types. And that they all recognize the Barnes’ of the world as the Blue Falcons that they are. Perhaps I am like Big Harold in that regard.
If our society has failed to generate more Elias' than Barnes, we are fucked and don't deserve to survive.
That sucks.
Quoting StreetlightX
And if Afghanistan has the highest child mortality rate (exceeding countries in the Sahel region), then things have gotten better:
The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US as abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries.
And for some reason there isn't a debate about in our countries as there is in the US.
It hardly comes to mind when looking at the US discourse about abortion.
From what I read the primary driving forces were poverty and lack of education. Women are still intentionally educated at a fraction of the rate that men are. The gains in child mortality are primarily due to government midwife programs.
(I first thought you were responding to my next response about the Nordic countries... :joke: )
Yes, this is true. Povetry means lack of funding for everything. Lack of education means things won't change easily. Especially the illiteracy rates are extremely high in Afghanistan, although a lot have been done during the last twenty years. Naturally with women's education starting from the 90's Taleban policies anything would be an improvement. From it's neighbors only Pakistan has an low literacy rate (56%) while Iran has fairly high rate and the former Soviet Republics enjoy high literacy rates after enjoying many decades the (Russian) Soviet school system.
One of the worst things was the radical islamists like Al Qaeda actually were in favor of this "pious povetry". The backwardness was a blessing for them as Western materialism was not apparent in the country. These militant radicals would literally destroy economies. But let's see what happens.
Yet I think the Taliban would be happy to sustain the present health care system, but I'm not so sure how they can do it. The basic problem was that the now collapsed Afghan government was financed 80% by foreign aid and assistance, aid which now will go to near zero. That has to have an effect on Afghan health care.
The big problem is there isn't much in the way of federal law regarding abortion, so much of what the supreme court decides on this matter is more of an opinion, from my view. I personally don't view the supreme court as a method by which to subvert the lack of ability of the legislative process to create laws around this. And the reason the legislative process struggles to create laws is because it is a highly contested topic, and many voters don't want it and so likewise they vote for representatives who don't want it either.
From a philosophical standpoint, I see the abortion issue as being a slippery-slope for morality and societal values. Drawing a fine line at "no" doesn't take us down that slope, but when we say its justified there are many opinions about when and how long, etc. On the most extreme end, there are philosophers who believe it is acceptable to kill toddlers because "they don't have a personality so aren't a person." That is obviously a big extreme, but nevertheless demonstrates my concern.
So, back to this is all politics, all show, and lots of opinion with little logical debate. It's a big fist-fight. If we really want truth, then delve into the facts without all the opinions. But, we've already established our opinions here, and nobody is going to change their mind...
Yet the abortion rate is about the same as in the US, at least in more recent years.
Abortion in Norway has an interesting history, as it does most places I imagine. An important milestone for the issue of abortion on request came on 15 January 1915, when Katti Anker Møller gave a speech in Kristiania (now Oslo) calling for legalized abortion on request. She said that "the basis for all freedom is the governance over one's own body and everything that is in it. The opposite is the condition of a slave." Apparently it was a feminist movement that eventually prevailed in the fight.
Well, there's Roe v. Wade, which (broadly speaking) holds that a woman has a qualified right to terminate a pregnancy, and that after the first trimester, the State may regulate abortion for purposes of maternal health, and the body of case law which has applied it since its decision in 1973. Roe v. Wade is precedent, binding on courts. That's about as much as you can get in the way of federal law.
Uh, no.
I'll refer to my original post on another thread (one year ago):
There you have it. It's not all about the existing laws, but how they are implemented. And how the society works.
Besides, one should note that both in the US and in the Nordic countries contraceptives are popular in use. This basically is more of a moral or a philosophical issue (and indeed fits perfectly in a Philosophy Forum).
A precedent isn't the same as a law, a law on the federal level could overturn this, or it is technically possible for the supreme court to change it's stance, but the bipartisan fight over it seems to just keep things in limbo generally.
There is nothing reasonable about it and it is clearly inequitable. The state can regulate the practice of medicine however it wants (so long as it can fabricate some claim about “health of the woman”) and the women has no right to choose after “viability”. You invited conversation about why the case does a bad job at preserving reproductive choice, declined to discuss it, and then keep asserting that the case is some sort of great solution.
A law on the federal (or state) level cannot change a “precedent” in-so-far as the precedent is about prohibiting the limitation of a constitutional right absent the Supreme’s agreeing that it is narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest (or whatever other language the Supremes choose to invoke in the moment). The US is not like other countries where the ultimate tribunal’s decisions stand until the legislature (or other governing body) acts to the contrary.
Yes, the legislature can change the analysis until the Supremes have a chance for judicial review, but the American system (under the claim of checks and balances) has placed the power to decide whether laws are Constitutional outside of the scope of legislative fiat.
Perhaps you missed where I responded to your earlier post and actually quoted Roe for you. If you like, go read it and let me know if your opinion still holds. Even if you don’t want to, the question is rather straight forward - Roe was based on medical technology in 1973 where viability was approximately six months after conception. If viability is pushed back earlier in time (five months, four months, three months, 9 weeks, 6 weeks, etc.), on your view, should that impact a woman’s right to reproductive choice? According to Roe’s reasoning, the state has an interest in protecting potential life which is sufficient to limit a woman’s right to reproductive choice.
Again, here is Roe for you “ With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the 'compelling' point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.”
As for your speculation, I am admitted to the bar in two states, so I am pretty confident that I know how to read a case for myself. You might want to spare me your summary of how you think law in the US works and actually get to the analysis of the language in the case that you are claiming is reasonable.
I am tempted to start pointing you in the direction of literature on the issue of viability and how bad it was, but here is an amusing quote:
[quote=“Easily Found Random Article on the Problem with Viability if You Cared to Look”]
“ The change in viability statistics over time highlights one of the unfor- tunate consequences of using viability, a concept developed for medical purposes, as the basis for determining an individual's legal status under the Constitution. Compare a healthy 26-week-old fetus in utero in 1973 with an identical fetus similarly situated in 2009. Under the viability rule, a state likely could not adopt abortion regulations protecting the life of such a fetus at the time of Roe but could protect an identical fetus today.5 3 "According to the logic of Roe v. Wade, then, a whole class of unborn human beings would now merit legal protection but would not have merited it then."54
This difference in legal status between the 1973 fetus and the 2009 fe- tus seems impossible to explain in a principled fashion. No distinction be- tween the two fetuses justifies the disparate treatment.5 Nor is there any difference in the burden the two fetuses place on their respective mothers. 6 . . .
. . .changes in
a woman's location during pregnancy could cause a fetus to move in and out of viability. He illustrates the point with an example:
A woman is 25 weeks pregnant, and is visiting a doctor at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne. Since the Monash Medical Centre has one of the most advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Units in the world, the developing human inside her would be considered viable. Now suppose that the woman leaves Melbourne, and flies to Papua New Guinea. Once she arrives in Papua New Guinea, she walks up into the highlands, where she remains until the birth. Since sophisticated medical assistance is not available in the Papua New Guinea highlands, when she arrives in the highlands her developing human would not be considered viable, and in fact would not be considered viable for almost three months. In fact, if this woman was to continue to travel regularly between Papua New Guinea and a major centre in Australia, then her unborn developing human could reach the 'point' of viability several times, becoming viable whenever she was near sophisticated medical facilities, and not viable whenever she returned to the remote Papua New Guinea highlands.58”
[/quote]
Random Article
And here is the Supreme Court discussing the Roe viability standard in Casey…
[quote=“Supreme’s Plurality in Casey”]
That brings us, of course, to the point where much criticism has been directed at Roe, a criticism that always inheres when the Court draws a specific rule from what in the Constitution is but a general standard. We conclude, however, that the urgent claims of the woman to retain the ultimate control over her destiny and her body, claims implicit in the meaning of liberty, require us to perform that function. Liberty must not be extinguished for want of a line that is clear. And it falls to us to give some real substance to the woman's liberty to determine whether to carry her pregnancy to full term.
94
We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that before that time the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. We adhere to this principle for two reasons. First, as we have said, is the doctrine of stare decisis. Any judicial act of line-drawing may seem somewhat arbitrary, but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care. We have twice reaffirmed it in the face of great opposition. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 476 U.S., at 759, 106 S.Ct., at 2178; Akron I, 462 U.S., at 419-420, 103 S.Ct., at 2487-2488. Although we must overrule those parts of Thornburgh and Akron I which, in our view, are inconsistent with Roe's statement that the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn, see infra, at ----, the central premise of those cases represents an unbroken commitment by this Court to the essential holding of Roe. It is that premise which we reaffirm today.
95
The second reason is that the concept of viability, as we noted in Roe, is the time at which there is a realistic possibility of maintaining and nourishing a life outside the womb, so that the independent existence of the second life can in reason and all fairness be the object of state protection that now overrides the rights of the woman. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S., at 163, 93 S.Ct., at 731. Consistent with other constitutional norms, legislatures may draw lines which appear arbitrary without the necessity of offering a justification. But courts may not. We must justify the lines we draw. And there is no line other than viability which is more workable. To be sure, as we have said, there may be some medical developments that affect the precise point of viability, see supra, at ----, but this is an imprecision within tolerable limits given that the medical community and all those who must apply its discoveries will continue to explore the matter. The viability line also has, as a practical matter, an element of fairness. In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State's intervention on behalf of the developing child.
96
The woman's right to terminate her pregnancy before viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade. It is a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.
[/quote]
PP vs. Casey
I look forward to your lesson on how I am “stupid or worse” and your demonstration of how I “don’t know what I am talking about.”
You should really quit while you are ahead, Tim. Go read the dissent to Casey and the ink spilled on the judicial fiat of the majority in Roe. If you have any hope of understanding why Roe is in such peril, you really need to have a handle on what was actually done and whether the Robert’s court can walk Roe back without undoing the concept of precedent.
That isn’t what Casey said, that isn’t the framework, and it is generally bollox. The actual case law in the US is that VIABILITY is the deciding moment when the state has a compelling interest in protecting the interest’s of a potential life against the mother absent a threat to her life or health. Not the mother’s knowledge or anything else. The right to abortion generally (as performed by doctors) hinges on birth having a worse medical outcome than abortion at the time performed.
If the point of Roe was to enshrine the right to reproductive choice, Roe failed.
The court claiming that Roe was well considered is like you claiming that you understood the decision - self-serving and meaningless for purposes of analysis.
You are asking me to account for the non-sense that was the Casey reasoning? Go ask O’Conner.
But read her sentence before the one you quoted: The viability line also has, as a practical matter, an element of fairness.
She is trying to defend the viability rule using specious logic - logic that you easily rebut yourself when saying that actual knowledge is required for any claim to consent.
Did you see I quoted the actual case at you multiple times, Tim? Are you really going to play that dense? And are you further aware that the Case case that I quoted to you actually changed the trimester analysis seemingly laid out in Roe? So like the actual law in the US regarding abortion is not based on Roe but on the viability and undue burden standard?
Even in Casey the Supremes would disagree with your 26 weeks. The case is now thirty years old.
[quote=“Casey”]
74
We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe's factual assumptions: advances in maternal health care allow for abortions safe to the mother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973, see Akron I, supra, 462 U.S., at 429, n. 11, 103 S.Ct., at 2492, n. 11, and advances in neonatal care have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier. Compare Roe, 410 U.S., at 160, 93 S.Ct., at 730, with Webster, supra, 492 U.S., at 515-516, 109 S.Ct., at 3055 (opinion of REHNQUIST, C.J.); see Akron I, supra, 462 U.S., at 457, and n. 5, 103 S.Ct., at 2489, and n. 5 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting). But these facts go only to the scheme of time limits on the realization of competing interests, and the divergences from the factual premises of 1973 have no bearing on the validity of Roe's central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which the State's interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe's factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it. [/quote]
Here is my equally as quippy a rule: a woman has a right to abortion on demand at any point until the fetus has been detached from her body. Viability is of no moment and the state never has a compelling interest in coercing someone to reproduce.
I am not anti-science or “pro-natural.” Any level of medical technology available that can make a fetus viable is reasonable because for the most part, those technologies exist to SAVE THE PREGNANCIES OF WOMAN WHO WANT THEM. So I will not quibble that some post conception thing is or is not viable because it couldn’t breath/nurse/etc. without medical intervention. And once it is separated from its mother, I will not argue that the mother can simply withhold medical care by fiat because the thing is “not viable” without the gestational analogs made available to it.
I will not, therefore, engage in the mental game of whether the decision is about “all or none” where a magic moment in time is the arbiter between murder and meaningless abortion. Clearly different people have different relationships to a potential life and how to regard it. What I will say is that REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE is the point of abortion advocacy and the reason why it is essential that a right to reproductive choice be read into the Constitution with no allotment for governmental interests. What makes my line in the sand simple is that it comports with general notions of identity - something inside of you which springs from your own cells is you. Something detached from you is something else, even if it can be reintegrated (consider an amputated hand that is reattached).
The moral confusion here is precisely about notions of ensoulment - that somehow magic happens when a sperm unites with an ovum and a new genetic mix is formed. I do not agree and find the idea to be intellectually indefensible. There is no moment in time during gestation that changes the relationship of the mass of growing cells in the uterus to the mother - it is her and she has absolute say over what happens to her body.
If your issue is simply that being inside the uterus and being three inches to the right outside of the uterus shouldn’t be the difference between permitted feticide and criminal murder, I would have you think long and hard about whether your queasiness about that situation should override someone’s choice to reproduce or otherwise do what they will with their own bodily integrity. Put differently, once the state has an interest in being in someone’s womb to override their reproductive choice because of your unease about murder/feticide, when does it stop being murder? And if it isn’t viability (which I imagine it isn’t), why pretend like it is?
My suggestion to the pro-choice camp of the debate is try the alternative route of contraception; promote it with the greatest of vigor and a time will come when the pro-choice movement will become utterly irrelevant; after all, there would be no unwanted pregnancies to abort, if all goes well that is.
Since Marbury v. Madison, issued in 1803, it's been accepted that the federal courts may review legislation and executive actions and declare them unconstitutional, and therefore void. So, if you want to get rid of Roe v. Wade, a federal law may not necessarily get you what you want.
Surely Congress has the needed authority under the commerce clause.
In all seriousness though, there is a conundrum here: how to make a just law that by definition will neither constrain nor protect the behavior of just under half the American population, but only the behavior of the other half, and based on a characteristic not of their choosing and about which they can do nothing.
Your only option is not to target women at all, but either their unborn children or the providers of the service. Constraining or protecting the behavior of providers looks like the dodge that it is though: only half of Americans could conceivably seek that service, so I don't know why judges wouldn't treat that as in effect constraining or protecting only half the population. Which means you're practically forced to consider the unborn children, and there's no consensus on what to do there.
Therefore neither the several States nor the federal government should enact laws either restricting or protecting abortion. Unless, of course, you can make a case that we can make just laws that only apply to tall people or fat people or gay people or people between the ages of 30 and 35. (Obviously I'm passing by stuff like anti-discrimination laws, which are just the inverse.) I suppose there's a sense in which we already do this with serious mental illness and proclivity to anti-social and criminal behavior -- but that's a can of worms in itself.
Finally, I hereby recognize and stipulate to the sovereign jurisdiction of all others over any who reside within their body.
Don't call me "Shirley" (sorry, I can't resist an Airplane reference).
I think the pro-life folks have reached such a level of zeal that as far as they're concerned, there can be no reasonable law permitting abortions.
What exactly is science supposed to sort out to a certainty?
Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. It is also the body of knowledge accumulated through the discoveries about all the things in the universe. Science does not determine what actions are "ok" because what's ok and not ok is a moral question or a question based on things like moral intuition, subjective values, and cultural norms. If, for example, science somehow determined that personhood began at around week 23 and, miraculously, even the religious community accepted this as true, does that make it okay to terminate life that's becoming a person? That seems to suggest that it's more ok to terminate a baby than an adult. Doesn't really work that way, right?
Science doesn't determine our moral intuitions. Regardless of science, abortion feels wrong and that's "ok", we're not slaves to our intuitions. We're also not slaves to our values and culture, though science is notoriously bad at influencing these things.
I appreciate that you want to have the abortion debate, but that was not the point of @Ciceronianus’ post or my engaging with you regarding the shortfalls of Roe’s reasoning. If you want to read about Roe and the conceptual problems with the viability standard (later affirmed by the Casey court), you can do so. If you want to debate Roe, we can always do that in a different thread, but many articles have already done a better job than you and I will at hashing out viability (as a Constitutional, scientific, or philosophical matter).
Your initial participation in the thread regarding Roe
Quoting tim wood
invoked my response because Roe is an unworkable standard from the perspective of anyone advocating for reproductive freedom. The Casey court acknowledge that it was a moving goal post and that as soon as viability is reached (based upon current medical technology), the state has an interest in protecting the potential person. Ciceronianus made the following comment
Quoting Ciceronianus
While I certainly agree with him about the realpolitik of the Texas decision, I am not so sure that Roe, Casey, and many other cases don’t follow a similar path. To simply hold up prior SC decisions as if they are some great accomplishment of human reason which engages in line drawing in some unquestionable fashion is naive at best.
Abortion has historically brought about suspect judicial behavior in service of a greater practical goal. The Texas decision is more reprehensible in-so-far as it permits the undoing of SC precedent by way of the shadow docket and the frustration of final adjudication while people are being intentionally denied their ability to exercise a constitutional right (the undue burden standard of Casey).
Whenever someone confuses the method of the SC in a brazen expansion of Constitutional rights of people with the goal of the SC, an error has been made. The viability standard, as unworkable as it is, is what the SC is stuck with if it hopes to maintain any sense of legitimacy in the public’s eye when upholding the Roe/Casey line of cases. The opponents to abortion know this and they can, therefore, fight the battle on at least three fronts with a straight face:
1) the SC was wrong in Roe regarding a fundamental right,
2) the SC’s viability standard is the most that can be supported under the Constitution and the period of time where a woman has an unfettered right to abortion is reduced each time medical technology improves while the state’s ability to regulate abortion in all instances (except for health and welfare of the mother) is increased, and
3) the regulation of medical practice or other necessary supports for obtaining an abortion (indirect obstacles/burdens) combined with directly frustrating a woman seeking an abortion by increasing the time, inconvenience, expense, etc. of getting the abortion (direct obstacles/burdens) up until the line that the SC deems such burdens “undue”.
What is novel about the Texas case is that it was designed specifically to go outside of the traditional context of discussion by allowing a private right of action against people other than woman seeking an abortion. As intimated by the court’s discussion of who the injunction would be enforceable against in the event it was issued, the due process clause is a restriction on governmental action, not private action. Even if Roe/Casey said that the government can’t restrict women in getting an abortion (a direct burden), maybe there is enough of a hole in the due process clause that a private person (under a new grant of right) can limit third person’s from assisting a woman in getting an abortion. This move is close to terrifying in that it privatizes behavior that the government could not get away with if engaged in directly.
A few excerpts from the dissents in Texas:
[quote=“Breyer”]
. . . Texas’s law delegates to private indi- viduals the power to prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion during the first stage of pregnancy. But a woman has a federal constitutional right to obtain an abortion dur- ing that first stage. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 846 (1992); Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 164 (1973). And a “State cannot delegate . . . a veto power [over the right to obtain an abortion] which the state itself is absolutely and totally prohibited from exercis- ing during the first trimester of pregnancy.” Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 69 (1976) (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, we have made clear that “since the State cannot regulate or pro- scribe abortion during the first stage . . . the State cannot delegate authority to any particular person . . . to prevent abortion during that same period.” Ibid. . .
. . .I recognize that Texas’s law delegates the State’s power to prevent abortions not to one person (such as a district attorney) or to a few persons (such as a group of government officials or private citizens) but to any person. But I do not see why that fact should make a critical legal difference. That delegation still threatens to invade a constitutional right, and the coming into effect of that delegation still threatens imminent harm.[/quote]
[quote=“Sotomayor”]
The Legislature fashioned this scheme because federal constitutional challenges to state laws ordinarily are brought against state officers who are in charge of enforcing the law. See, e.g., Virginia Office for Protection and Advo- cacy v. Stewart, 563 U. S. 247, 254 (2011) (citing Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908)). By prohibiting state officers from enforcing the Act directly and relying instead on citi- zen bounty hunters, the Legislature sought to make it more complicated for federal courts to enjoin the Act on a statewide basis.“
[/quote]
A somewhat lengthy quote from a SC case dealing with the reach of the 14th amendment protections (prefaced by Roe’s invocation of the 14th Amendement for the right to privacy):
[quote=“Roe vs Wade”]
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
[/quote]
[quote=“US vs. Morrison”] Foremost among these limitations is the time-honored principle that the Fourteenth Amendment, by its very terms, prohibits only state action. "[T]he principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful." Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13, and n. 12 (1948).
Shortly after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, we decided two cases interpreting the Amendment's provisions, United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629 (1883), and the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883). In Harris, the Court considered a challenge to § 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. That section sought to punish "private persons" for "conspiring to deprive anyone of the equal protection of the laws enacted by the State." 106 U. S., at 639. We concluded that this law exceeded Congress' § 5 power because the law was "directed exclusively against the action of private persons, without reference to the laws of the State, or their administration by her officers." Id., at 640. In so doing, we reemphasized our statement from Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313, 318 (1880), that "'these provisions of the fourteenth amendment have reference to State action exclusively, and not to any action of private individuals.'" Harris, supra, at 639 (misquotation in Harris).
We reached a similar conclusion in the Civil Rights Cases.
In those consolidated cases, we held that the public accommodation provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which applied to purely private conduct, were beyond the scope of the § 5 enforcement power. 109 U. S., at 11 ("Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the [Fourteenth] [A]mendment"). See also, e. g., Romer v.
622
Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 628 (1996) ("[I]t was settled early that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give Congress a general power to prohibit discrimination in public accommodations"); Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922, 936 (1982) ("Careful adherence to the 'state action' requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power"); Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1002 (1982); Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 172 (1972); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 147, n. 2 (1970); United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 554 (1876) ("The fourteenth amendment prohibits a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; but this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the States upon the fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society").
The force of the doctrine of stare decisis behind these decisions stems not only from the length of time they have been on the books, but also from the insight attributable to the Members of the Court at that time. Every Member had been appointed by President Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, or Arthur-and each of their judicial appointees obviously had intimate knowledge and familiarity with the events surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Petitioners contend that two more recent decisions have in effect overruled this longstanding limitation on Congress' § 5 authority. They rely on United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745 (1966), for the proposition that the rule laid down in the Civil Rights Cases is no longer good law. In Guest, the Court reversed the construction of an indictment under 18 U. S. C. § 241, saying in the course of its opinion that "we deal here with issues of statutory construction, not with issues of constitutional power." 383 U. S., at 749. Three Members of the Court, in a separate opinion by Justice Brennan, expressed the view that the Civil Rights Cases
623
were wrongly decided, and that Congress could under § 5 prohibit actions by private individuals. 383 U. S., at 774 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). Three other Members of the Court, who joined the opinion of the Court, joined a separate opinion by Justice Clark which in two or three sentences stated the conclusion that Congress could "punis[h] all conspiracies-with or without state action-that interfere with Fourteenth Amendment rights." Id., at 762 (concurring opinion). Justice Harlan, in another separate opinion, commented with respect to the statement by these Justices:
"The action of three of the Justices who joined the Court's opinion in nonetheless cursorily pronouncing themselves on the far-reaching constitutional questions deliberately not reached in Part II seems to me, to say the very least, extraordinary." Id., at 762, n. 1 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Though these three Justices saw fit to opine on matters not before the Court in Guest, the Court had no occasion to revisit the Civil Rights Cases and Harris, having determined "the indictment [charging private individuals with conspiring to deprive blacks of equal access to state facilities] in fact contain[ed] an express allegation of state involvement." 383 U. S., at 756. The Court concluded that the implicit allegation of "active connivance by agents of the State" eliminated any need to decide "the threshold level that state action must attain in order to create rights under the Equal Protection Clause." Ibid. All of this Justice Clark explicitly acknowledged. See id., at 762 (concurring opinion) ("The Court's interpretation of the indictment clearly avoids the question whether Congress, by appropriate legislation, has the power to punish private conspiracies that interfere with Fourteenth Amendment rights, such as the right to utilize public facilities").
624
To accept petitioners' argument, moreover, one must add to the three Justices joining Justice Brennan's reasoned explanation for his belief that the Civil Rights Cases were wrongly decided, the three Justices joining Justice Clark's opinion who gave no explanation whatever for their similar view. This is simply not the way that reasoned constitutional adjudication proceeds. We accordingly have no hesitation in saying that it would take more than the naked dicta contained in Justice Clark's opinion, when added to Justice Brennan's opinion, to cast any doubt upon the enduring vitality of the Civil Rights Cases and Harris.
[/quote]
US vs. Morrison
[quote=“Cornell LII on State Action”]
Beyond this are cases where a private individual discriminates, and the question is whether a state has encouraged the effort or has impermissibly aided it.1361 Of notable importance and a subject of controversy since it was decided is Shelley v. Kraemer.1362 There, property owners brought suit to enforce a racially restrictive covenant, seeking to enjoin the sale of a home by white sellers to black buyers. The covenants standing alone, Chief Justice Vinson said, violated no rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. “So long as the purposes of those agreements are effectuated by voluntary adherence to their terms, it would appear clear that there has been no action by the State and the provisions of the Amendment have not been violated.” However, this situation is to be distinguished from where “the purposes of the agreements were secured only by judicial enforcement by state courts of the restrictive terms of the agreements.”1363 Establishing that the precedents were to the effect that judicial action of state courts was state action, the Court continued to find that judicial enforcement of these covenants was forbidden. “The undisputed facts disclose that petitioners were willing purchasers of properties upon which they desire to establish homes. The owners of the properties were willing sellers; and contracts of sale were accordingly consummated. . . .”1364
[/quote]
Quoting tim wood
Yes, I presented that incorrectly and have adjusted my post accordingly.
As for 3, that isn’t an argument, but a description of what they have done and the types of laws that have survived judicial scrutiny. 1 has failed and there has been no great movement on 2 even though the line of viability has clearly been pushed closer to conception than at the time of Roe (as acknowledge in Casey).
P.S. The three points should not be taken as an exhaustive list, by the way. For instance, there has been much ink wasted on whether there should be a different standard other than viability (such as pain, heartbeat, etc.), but arguing Roe got it wrong on viability being the standard is similar to the first point - that Roe was wrong.
I believe I have previously addressed this, but I will try one more time.
There is a fundamental right to reproductive choice which should, under current Constitutional analysis, require a governmental law/regulation/policy narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest in order to regulate (or place an “undue” burden on).
Roe, which serves as the first explicit recognition of such right, both affirms that and at the same time grants the government a compelling interest in regulating behavior around potential lives.
Roe provides a bright line test of “viability” as the point at which the state has its compelling interest.
“Viability” is not a jurisprudential concept, but one that is plucked from medicine around the time of Roe. Such concept is inherently tied to the ability of contemporary medicine/science to permit the development of a clump of cells into a person.
In logic, then, Roe both establishes a right and details the way in which that right can be denied in virtually all circumstances based merely upon an accident of timing of non-judicial concepts. A woman can have a right to an abortion on day 35 and get it without incident in the wilds of Jabib, but if similarly situated woman had minor changes in date of pregnancy, length of pregnancy, place of pregnancy, overall health, etc., her right to an abortion may be different based merely upon the filing of a patent, the distribution of a machine, etc. So viability is not a standard by which a woman’s right to reproductive choice is protected, but rather a standard by which the state’s ability to regulate abortion is momentarily (and contextually) delayed.
Discussion of viability is, therefore, an abrogation of the SC’s obligation to provide judicial grounding for the existence and protection of rights. If a woman has a right to reproductive choice, there should be an articulable, consistent judicial basis for such right, not a punt that splits the baby between warring camps.
If you want to discuss the other jurisprudential reasons why Roe was probably wrong, we can do that, but I am trying to focus on those issues currently relevant to the abortion case law rather than re-hashing whether the right to privacy under Griswold was a judicial invention or something properly subject to protection under the due process clause of the 14th Amendement.
[quote=“Cornell LII on Privacy”]
In Griswold, the Supreme Court found a right to privacy, derived from penumbras of other explicitly stated constitutional protections. The Court used the personal protections expressly stated in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments to find that there is an implied right to privacy in the Constitution. The Court found that when one takes the penumbras together, the Constitution creates a "zone of privacy." While the holding in Griswold found for a right to privacy, it was narrowly used to find a right to privacy for married couples, and only with regard to the right to purchase contraceptives.
Justice Harlan's Concurrence in Griswold
Also important to note is Justice Harlan's concurring opinion in Griswold, which found a right to privacy derived from the Fourteenth Amendment. In his concurrence, he relies upon the rationale in his dissenting opinion in Poe v. Ullman (1961). In that opinion, he wrote, "I consider that this Connecticut legislation, as construed to apply to these appellants, violates the Fourteenth Amendment. I believe that a statute making it a criminal offense for married couples to use contraceptives is an intolerable and unjustifiable invasion of privacy in the conduct of the most intimate concerns of an individual's personal life."
In privacy cases post-Griswold, the Supreme Court typically has chosen to rely upon Justice Harlan's concurrence rather than Justice Douglas's majority opinion. Eisenstadt v Baird (1971), Roe v. Wade (1972), and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) are three of the most prolific cases in which the Court extended the right to privacy. In each of these cases, the Court relied upon the Fourteenth Amendment, not penumbras.
[/quote]
LII on Privacy
Yes. I'm guessing someone in a think-tank somewhere was damn pleased with themselves when they had this idea. (And somebody in the Texas legislature got a copy of the inevitable white paper.)
Maybe they had been reading about the Cultural Revolution and thought it looked like a clever way of unleashing third-party true believers on the trouble-makers.
Perhaps state governments all over the United States will decide it's about time they substituted the Party for the State.
It is an absolutely jaw-dropping perversion of our system of representative government, and I shudder to think what this country will be like soon if it catches on.
:sad:
And the idea of private parties performing traditional acts associated with government is our new reality on every level - local, state, federal, international, regulatory, etc. We are really watching the willful undoing of our public systems of government to the benefit of entrenched powers (political and capital).
That isn't required, however, in order for one to take the position Roe must be respected as precedent and treated as such. The majority's approach is to merely ignore it, thereby allowing a law which it admits is constitutionally questionable to remain in effect (encouraging the adoption of other, similar laws) until it is compelled to address it. I frankly wonder whether the majority decided the law is so bizarre they would be compelled to strike it down, and declined to review it in order to avoid doing so. But I'm a cynic in the common sense, though an aspiring Stoic in the philosophical sense.
Yeah! Fuck 'em all. The problem - Texas and the idiots in the Supreme Court migh just give birth to more Texas and more idiots at the Supreme Court! :scream: Let's not fuck anyone for the moment! :lol:
Being from Colorado, a common carving on bathrooms walls: "Here I sit, buns a flexin'; givin' birth to another Texan."
:lol:
A flaw is contextual. In my context, Roe is flawed. In yours, you see it is a good decision. We can go round the bush again with you trying to get us to say the same thing, but we won’t. I pointed you to literature in law, politics, academia, etc. which also discuss Roe’s flaws, but you don’t seem very interested in anything besides repeating your view about how I or other people might see it.
I am not looking for a final resolution in Roe when I judge it on jurisprudential grounds, but well founded legal reasoning. My critique of Roe in this thread has not been a matter of what I prefer, but rather whether Roe accomplishes what it purports to do or people understand it to do.
My view on the right to reproductive choice has been stated and one would imagine that I believed it reasonable when I wrote it. In terms of Constitutinal analysis, my preference is for a right that is not consumed by the exception, which is the obvious inevitability of Roe.
I was responding to Tim. I didn’t mean to imply that you were uncritical of the SC or other precedent. Sorry.
But yes, it would be hard not to strike down this law if considered on its merits and so I can see them using procedural delays to avoid doing so (such as invoking issues of standing, ripeness, and enforceability).
Proof the SC is political will be found in their hearing of a case over legislation from a Blue State that is drafted using the same exact work-around language that Texas used. (guns, anybody?)
When that happens, feel free to hold the SC in contempt of the United States.
The more you know . . . ***
defense. Saying a woman is defending her body from an invader. But if the pre-born is human this is like saying a person who leaves her front door unlocked and a baby crawls can blow its head off with a shotgun. The right to life is universal, not limited to groups, sexes, etc.The right to life is paramount because it listed first and is needed for the other rights. It's not about how far someone is in development. If human life starts at conception it is equal to a 3 year old girl who is still developing (yet fully human).
Did you have the right to live at 8 months old but not 1 month before your birth? Is a person’s value defined by her abilities, by what she can or can’t do? No. With age you gain more freedoms but not more human rights. Now it is obvious that human LIFE starts at conception, so it must be assumed that this life is human. If you have a building that needs to be demolished and there might be a person inside, yet the building is in need of destruction, do you destroy the building although a person might be there just because it seems more practical? No. If human life might be there you must respect it.
Now abortion supporters seem to be saying, although they seldom say what they really mean, that life would not have put such a duty on women and so the child cannot be human until birth. However, from the logic of this would follow that:
1) assisted suicide should be allowed (right to one's body over duty to protect life)
2) the death penalty cannot be imposed for justice's sake (the contrary reality would be too hard to be right)
3) doctors can't force an operation to save someone's life when there are no pain killers available (pragmaticism over human dignity)
4) and death should be imposed on those who are in great pain and can't respond
Now a pro-life person might stay pro-life and have one or the other opinions on these, but the pro-choice idea, implied in much of what they say, is that without abortion life is too hard and so abortion should be allowed. And from this principles flows the listed positions above follow
If a doctor removes a fetus and it dies (abortion) there are no consequences.
From a legal stand point this needs to be cleared up.
Everything else is just noise.
Her house, her rules. Cleared up.
No they don't. There is a world of difference between life and the right thereto. Her house, her rules. No sophism.
It's interesting that you mention the woman in your first example, but not in the second. Do you care to explain why that's the case?
Life must be assumed to have rights. There are no counter rights of the mother. When this is not accepted morality slips into nihilism
But then
Quoting James Riley
So there is the sophism. The one and only issue is whether the pre-born should be considered human. I can't prove I have rights nor that you have rights. It's about what we are willing to respect. You are willing to kill the pre-born even if there might be human rights there. Abortion supporters don't care if there might be rights involved. They want some kind of false liberation in order to be "free". I feel free, I feel sexually liberated but I don't say we should not respect the unborn. It's ridiculous that you are willing to end a beating heart just because you can't find a logical proof that it is human. There is no logical proof for anything about rights in that way. We come from a family tree of hominids. It's about what we should respect as honorable responsible people. Pro-choice people are like people in free fall trying to grab on to anything they can to keep it going
Attacking the messenger means you loose!
And some get blocked for stating facts.
This site is disgusting!
That is not a sophism. Look it up.
Quoting Gregory
No, that is not the one and only issue. The one and only issue is when the right to life vests. That is a legal question. The courts rule on matters of law. The legislature makes the law.
Quoting Gregory
Yes, and by "we", see above.
Quoting Gregory
Well, I suppose if a woman asked me to, and if I had the skill set, then yes, I'd be willing. Her choice.
Quoting Gregory
Sure they do. See above.
Quoting Gregory
No, they don't. They want you to mind your own business.
Quoting Gregory
Please don't put words in my mouth. I stipulate that life begins at conception, if not before, and that anyone, anywhere, at any time has sovereign jurisdiction over any life that resides within their body.
Quoting Gregory
If you are arguing that the law is illogical, then take it up if you are so concerned about it. I, personally, think she should be able to kill it any time that it is within her, but the law says otherwise. Some sophistic BS about sentience, viability, heart beats and other nonsense. If I really cared, I'd take it up, but it's not my call. It's a woman's call. I will support her decision regarding anything inside of her and whether she wants to litigate something.
Quoting Gregory
I agree. As honorable, responsible people, we should respect the sovereign jurisdiction of a woman over any life that resides within her (aka mind our own business).
Quoting Gregory
Sounds like the busy bodies minding other people's business.
First you say life, then you limit that to human life, then you don't fight the state's right to kill on the back end, but you do fight when the state decides vesting on the front end. Then you distinguish based on innocence, while we kill the innocent all the time on the back end. Talk about sophistry. Jeesh!
No assumption must be made. But even if it is, rights are not absolute. We subordinate them all the time.
Quoting Gregory
Wait, what? I thought you were arguing that the baby's right to life was a counter to the rights of the mother? I must have missed something.
Quoting Gregory
Life need not be meaningless and yet one life can be subordinated to another life, or a right held by another life.
You do use sophistry. The mother has no right over something that is not her body. Child's body, it's rights.
It means rights start at conception. Birth doesn't start the right to life, nor development. That's obvious
It means that capital punishment, slaughtering animals, etc, should be illegal.
Notably, in the latter example all parties directly involved are in agreement, and not so much in the former example.
Because it grows into a formed person. The formation has started at conception. Are you for saying that it's not a person before birth but is after? That's arbitrary. Saying it starts at conception is not arbitrary. It grants rights to whole process, not a slow growth of rights. The mother is no issue in the discussion, but only what rights should be assumes to exist in a body the body that is not the mother's. The mother has rights over her body, not someone else's
For those of you who would prefer to practice sanctimony, I'm an easy-going fellow, so have at it if you must but you might consider doing more than merely making declarations.
Curiously, there’s strong evidence that when abortion is prohibited poverty and crime significantly increases years later, so in effect granting rights too early can eventually result in severely diminished rights later in life, as when incarcerated.
The ends do not justify the means
There is no other situation like this, and it is not impossible that our usual rules for dealing with persons are not quite up to the task here.
The implication is that it’s not really about the sanctity of life, because if it were the concern would not immediately disappear after delivery.
Can you prove from *logic* a one hour old baby has rights? Nop. It's a continuum on the logical end so you respect all life on the moral side. The mother has rights over her body but that has no relationship to the argument over abortion. The sophistry is saying the mother has a right over a body that is not her own. It's not my fault you don't get this. I've explained this on other occasions to you on this forum
I've already states the rights of the mother are over her body, not someone else's. Living inside someone doesn't mean less rights.
It's a unique situation but a beautiful one and it's specialness doesn't grant women rights to stop the life of their unborn
I said a woman has rights over her body not someone else's. Also, where is you infallible argument that proves when life rights begin? I show respect for life on this. You're willing to say "maybe in some reality it's not human so I'll kill it"
So birth gives rights. Prove it
Hell no they don't.
You're saying that before birth you can take the life and after you can't. Why does the birth grant rights?
Huh?
Horrible
Quoting tim wood
Horrible
Quoting tim wood
Do you admit you have no proof of this?
Quoting tim wood
Some say only their race have rights
That's plausible, but you're forgetting that the situation is unique. Maybe it does grant a unique right. Maybe not. But now at least it's clear that if the state wishes to protect or infringe upon some right, this would be the one, if it exists.
What I mean is, this is the clearer option, so we don't have to deal with the conundrum of the rights of a person only accessible to state action literally through another person. Under this approach, the rights of a person inside another and dependent upon them only come into it insofar as the outer person may, or may not, have the power of life and death over them. (What's that called in Roman law, @Ciceronianus?) Only as a limit, or the absence of a limit, on the behavior of a person who has a person living inside them and dependent on them.
And then that's what we'd have to decide, whether the outer person has such a right, and whether it is limited. How do we go about that?
No YOU are being dishonest. You say the unborn have no rights. You have no evidence. But you ask me to prove the contrary. I said we must assume rights unless proven otherwise. That's the natural human way of looking on this. You say a mother has no obligation to the unborn? What world do you live in
You need to come down.
You are not talking about a right to life of the mother but the "right" of her to take the rights of the unborn
It's a human inside a human. duh
Well read over my responses, I'll read over yours, and have good day and come down
That is correct. She may, or may not, have exactly such a right and it may, or may not, be limited. Pregnant women are unique in a way we cannot pretend not to notice, just as the people -- granting your claim that a fertilized egg is a person, for the moment -- inside them are in a unique position.
Rights come from humanity
Why would rights of anyone be diminished because it is inside someone else?
I appear to be? Wow. Where did it come from? Conception
So you think, without evidence, that life begins at birth and that before birth the rights are given by the mother to the not-human entity? You have no evidence and why not respect all life instead?
That was not my question. My question was whether a mother might indeed have something like the patria potestas, absolute authority including the power of life and death, (never mind, @Ciceronianus, I looked it up) over her unborn child. If the mother has no such right, we have to deal with the mess I indicated above. If she does, we need only think of the unborn child's rights negatively, as a limit or the absence of a limit on the mother's unique right as the mother of an unborn child, and this is simpler. And my real question was how shall we determine whether a woman has such a "matria potestas"?
When does someone become a human?
Because you are juxtaposing the right to life of one being with the "right" to kill it on the other. There is no symmetry there
When does someone become a human?
Well you have no concept of humanity or rights.
A human is a human and it begins at conception. You wonder what a human is and so will say absolute rights start at birth but don't know what rights are or what humanity is. The problem is that you are obsessed with language instead of philosophy, as in :
Quoting tim wood
That is correct. Perhaps the mother of an unborn child does indeed have a unique right to kill that child, even supposing that what is inside her is a person. Roman law recognized such an authority of a father over his children (and theirs), and separately -- I had forgotten these were different -- the power of a husband over his wife (the manus). It is not inconceivable that we could recognize the mother of an unborn child to have such a right. Since the other person (again, granting that something inside her counts as another person) is actually inside her and entirely dependent on her, it would seem she has a stronger case for having such a right than either of the privileges recognized in Roman law.
You're proving one of my points. Once you don't respect all life other's rights will be violated. Why would rights be different because of dependency? Do you have an argument for this? No rights of the mother are violated by the anti-abortion stance. I am saying she doesn't have an addition right over someone else, dependent in body or in need to be raised as with post-born children
Quoting Gregory
Sure, yet egg + sperm isn't a person.
Quoting Gregory
It's not a person a couple months in. That's not an arbitrary assessment. I guess various legislations set various timeframes, like 3 months or a bit more, after which abortion requires extraordinary conditions.
How's this? Males that don't express they want children get a reversible vasectomy or something to that effect?
Yes yes, there'd be more to work out about this, but before we even start putting it all on the females I want both parents sharing responsibility here, so it's just the humble beginning of taking such a path. Males don't get to paw it all off to females and decide for them.
What rational person would say this with a straight face?
Yes it is. Why not rights just after birth then? We have to presume all human life has rights
Do you believe in a soul Gregory?
Nah, it ain't.
A lump of cells the size of a cherry ain't a person. My neighbor's kid is.
Deciding what a person is (under the law, such a law), may be (somewhat) arbitrary, but not wholly arbitrary.
Yes. Matter formed at conception is the soul. I don't subscribe to dualism. Humanity is the form but it is not separate from matter. The soul is all through the body and the body is all through the soul. We speak of them as two and must but I think they are really one.
On abortion, people are arguing, "first it must have a heart", "no a brain and a heart", "no kidneys too", "no it must be born". All these arguments are random. The form is there at conception and blossoms into different shapes of that form throughout life
We are all lumps of cells
Rights might be different because the situation is unique. You do not have a general right to take another's life, or even a lesser right to harm them, attempt to harm them, or even menace them. Unless they are threatening to harm you or take your life, or you even believe they are; then, and only then, and only while you are in fear for your life or your person, we grant you a right of self-defense. Things you are otherwise forbidden to do, even waving a gun at someone else, are suddenly your right. (But it is limited; you cannot escape, go home and get your gun, and then go back and get the bastard.)
So I think it is not inconceivable that we would recognize that a pregnant woman is in a unique situation and grant her a unique right. If you do not recognize that right, of course you don't see it being infringed upon. As to whether any other right of the mother is infringed upon, it seems clear that you have taken her liberty, that you have asserted the authority to have some control over her actions for the furtherance of the state's interest in the life of her child. I'm not here to have that argument.
I am only asking why the mother does or does not have such a matria potestas over her unborn children, and whether that right, if it exists, might be limited. I don't have an argument either way. The idea only just occurred to me a little while ago. Do you have an argument for why we should not recognize such a right? An argument, mind you, not just astonishment at the idea.
Quoting jorndoe
Well, if you can't differentiate ? then so be it. Others can.
We should never recognize the right of one person to take the innocent life of another. If your philosophy says otherwise there is something wrong with your philosophy
The soul dies with the body then?
So the key word there is "innocent" right?
I don't think we classify lives as "innocent" and "not innocent" in our legal system, so I'm not sure how to proceed. Come to think of it, I don't think I personally classify lives this way, but I guess I can see why you might. Are "not innocent" lives forfeit in general? Or only in specific circumstances?
If you look at the self-defense exception though, we regularly have troublesome cases where someone genuinely believed they were in danger from someone else, or at least convincingly claims they had such a fear, even though the now dead person turns out not to have been carrying a weapon, not to be a known criminal, in short likely not to have been threatening the killer at all. Is that an innocent life that was taken, or a normal life innocent of the offense of threatening the person who killed them? Should we condone such a killing? Or should we require someone to know for certain the other person means them harm? Which option are you absolutely certain is the fair one?
Keep in mind that self-defense is not just an analogy here, but a common exception recognized in abortion laws. An unborn child can threaten a mother's life without having an intention to.
That sounds like the soul is the merger of the soul and the body/matter, but thats a stretch of coherency. What is this thing that merges with the body to form the soul? The soul? That doesnt make sense. Where does the “pre soul” soul come from? The sperm?
Quoting Gregory
They aren’t random. I think you mean arbitrary? These are attempts to find a base definition of what a human/person is, and many are based off of reason and biology, not randomly generated.
Also, aren’t you making the same arbitrary (what you called random) move by saying “conception”? Why not go further back and consider human life the sperm, or the egg? The sperm or the egg are “ingredients” for a person in the same way the fertilized egg is an
“ingredient” for the person but for some reason you are making the cut off at fertilized egg. Thats no different in terms of arbitrary/random than making the cut off at being born or developing a heart.
You are using a big word in order to sound intelligent. I am not using sophistry. Look it up.
Anyway, the mother has sovereign rights over that which is IN her body, whether some wag wants to claim it is part of her body or not. She can snip that umbilical any old time she wants as far as I'm concerned. The child has no rights unless and until we give it rights. And even then, those rights have been and can be subordinated to the rights of the mother.
She sure as hell does, if that other body goes a wandering around inside of her body. It's like a little uninvited trespasser.
We do not fully understand body, spirit, or death
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Of course we do
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Someone trying to kill you is not analogous to the situation with a fetus
Quoting James Riley
Coming from somebody who said the fetus is a human but you would personally kill it is asked by the mother..
Correct, and?
I place the mother's right, carte blanche, over that of any that reside within her.
I agree, life starts at conception. So what? The baby's right to life is subordinate to the arbitrary and capricious whims of the mother.
Support for abortion is completely dependent on emotion and not based on rationality. If you want to be an animal your choices are in your hands
No, a life is a life, in my book and the law's. In law, you're either guilty or not guilty of committing a particular act you are forbidden to. There is no concept of a life being innocent that I'm aware of.
Quoting Gregory
Nevertheless, a fetus can put a mother's life in danger. Don't think of it as murder, but more like manslaughter, not intentional. Of course in this case, the death of the mother could result not from an action of the fetus, but from it's living at all. Now what?
By the way,
Quoting Gregory
It really doesn't. Get a better dictionary.
You don't kill the fetus but if someone attacks you you assume he's not the situation of a fetus. Easy to understand
Innocent until proven guilty is law
Support for life is completely dependent on emotion and not based on rationality. I am an animal, and so are you. You don't have any choice in the matter.
The right to life means your life is good. Crimes forfeit rights because of bad actions. Your trying to take philosophy out of social science but then what is left?
Freedom means we choose our actions such that crimes merit punishment. Animals may or may not have this. If you choose to act without freedom you have still made a choice
In that case it’s best to go with what we do know rather than baseless speculation or superstitions, right?
But the fetus can be a threat to the mother just by living, not by doing anything. See how peculiar the situation of a pregnant woman and her unborn child is? You'd need a comic-book villain to come up with a scenario like that using only big walking-around people.
Ideas like this are sort of curious and belies a certain level of naïveté about what classifying something does in a metaphysical way. It is as if you believe that someone’s decision about how to use a word can magically change something from X to ~X and from ~Y to Y.
Last I checked, the cell is the basic unit of life. Sexual reproduction (which is how humans reproduce) involve the contribution of certain genetic material from a male gamete to a female gamete. Virtually all of the male gamete is destroyed in the process and a relatively trivial amount of the male gamete material persists after fusion of the male and female gamete. That is to say, at fertilization, virtually the entire cell is identical to what it was before fertilization save a smidge of new genetic material. There is no “life” that begins in that moment, rather there is a cell with some unique genetic aspects that has the potential to develop into something else. This cell may not be all that different than a cell that has been infected by a virus in so far as the virus changes the genetic makeup of a cell and causes the cell to cease being the “same” as the host’s cells before the infection. You don’t typically find someone arguing that a virally infected cell is a new human merely because there is some change in genetic composition between the cell before and after the infection.
I am mindful of the fact that a fertilized egg may develop into a human and a virally infected cell just explodes, but the question is, where does the material come from for a fertilized egg to develop? So you have 1/10,000 parts contributed from a male sex cell, the remainder from the female sex cell, plus other stuff to make the one cell two (and then four and eight and so on). Where does that stuff come from? It doesn’t come from anywhere - it is simply the incorporation of other parts of the mother, thereby making the non-mother portion of the result two cells like 1/20,000. This process continues - the mother’s one cell with minor genetic variation incorporates more parts of the mother and makes increasing numbers of cells.
Without going through all of embryonic development, suffice it say that you get to a blastocyst which is descended from the initially fertilized cell. This blastocyst has two parts - a trophoblast and the rest. The trophoblast, which is genetically identical to the rest of the blastocyst, goes on to form parts of the placenta and other support structures for the developing embryo. You may recognize the placenta as the thing that people throw in the garbage after a baby is born. What rights does the placenta have given that it meets all of the “life” requirements you established as the basis for being a rights bearer. And if the placenta has no rights, what does it mean to say that a fertilized cell is a rights bearer?
Now let’s say that all of the biologists agree that fertilization results in a cell with a different genetic composition than the cells from which it came and define that new cell as a new organism, how does that change the conversation from a world in which the biologists say that it isn’t a new organism until later embryonic development where individualist structures have developed?
You play a losing game when rights attach to cells with unique genetic properties. That mole on your back might be a rights bearer which you cannot remove without committing murder.
:100: :up:
And some people that wrote in English called rights “nonsense on stilts.” It is great to assert preference in the form of an ethical theory, but we shouldn’t pretend that rights theory is somehow any more rational or any better at staving off the nihilists. As to spirit, it is no different - a way that you try to push off responsibility for enforcing your preferences on people by appealing to something beyond. If a soul finds it way into a freshly fertilized egg, chances are that newly ensouled cell ends up as goo on the delivery room floor rather than in the baby people are busily fawning over.
Regardless, your mystical event that converts an ovum to a rights bearer has yet to be recognized at law in the US (at the Supreme Court level) for purposes of either asserting a claim of state interest or refutation of a woman’s right to abort. The only people arguing about life beginning at conception are the people who are trying to argue for judicial fiat to become the law (however temporary) of the land and the whimsical creation and destruction of rights as the political appointees to the Court gain and lose power.
Ok, we have different ideas about what those words mean. I take random to mean having no reason fir a particular outcome other than chance. Arbitrary I take to mean having a reason, even if that reason has a subjective/personal basis.
Anyway, you didnt respond to the rest:
“These are attempts to find a base definition of what a human/person is, and many are based off of reason and biology, not randomly generated.”
Quoting Gregory
I understand that is where you define personhood, at conception. What Im saying is that conception is just as “arbitrary” a place to define the start of personhood as heart or brain development. You have reasons for choosing conception as the starting point, the other side of view has reasons for choosing the formation of organs or whatever as the starting point. Both are equally “random”, you have just chosen a different starting point and for different reasons.
Quoting Gregory
I think biologists ARE in agreement about human life starting at conception. “Human life” and “a person” are not the same thing though, so his is a non-sequitor.
What I was really hoping to get an answer on was:
Quoting DingoJones
Im interested in how you view the soul here…
Quoting DingoJones
Where does the soul come from? Does it exist prior to taking form in the fertilized egg? Does each parent have half a soul to share?
If the body and soul are the same, does the soul change as the body does?
I understand you are getting grief from people but please answer each of those questions, I mean them earnestly.
…so you aren’t interested in answering any questions, responding to any points or even providing counterpoints of your own?
This is a discussion forum, not a ranting forum. Can you please answer my questions and respond to points? If not, there is no reason to pretend youre addressing me by tagging my name to your post. Just leave my name out and rant to a general audience.
It's tedious to go over ontology with people who say life and personhood are not identical, equate moles with embryos, and defend an anti-soul, anti-God, anti-child, anti-family position like abortion. I did what I wanted to spend my time to do on this thread and if you didn't appreciate it I am both not taking it personally and not going to spend my time debating it further
A mole (or other cancer cell) is alive, genetically different, and not a person on your account. You are the one that says life is not personhood.
You didnt debate it in the first place, you preached it. Also I didnt do any if those things, i asked a bunch of questions to better understand your position. Primarily I was wondering about how you view the soul as it pertains to this issue. You didnt really respond to any if them.
So what were you setting out to do in this thread that you already accomplished?
Blame god, I suppose.
But really, your reckoning is coming. Those naughty cell-biologists are on track to convert any cell back into a stem-cell and then grow a clone from it. Unless someone stops them, all human cells will have the potential to be independent humans. And in that moment, where every cell is a potential life if science is just applied properly, you will have a world of legal non-sense on your hands. Each time someone takes a stem-cell, does some genetic insertion, and fosters a new life into self-sustaining existence, you will have to confront the Pandora’s box of bad philosophy, theology, and law you have wrought. Thank god there are unlimited souls available to god to put into cells going nowhere - we are going to need them.
And just wait till they figure out totipotent cells where they remove all native DNA and replace it with whatever they want. You can start implanting human created embryos into a humans with a functioning uterus giving birth to people that for all intents and purposes are people even though they did not come from the joining of a sperm and egg. Your lack of imagination of what people will look like in the future and where they will come from does you no favors in developing (or supporting) your eternal ethic of personhood at ensoulment.
P.S. For those in the cheap seats, see ectogenesis.
P.P.S. And for those in the even cheaper seats, see cloning in modern animal industry.
[quote=“FDA on Cloning of Livestock”]
… Most cloning today uses a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Just as with in vitro fertilization, scientists take an immature egg, or oocytes, from a female animal (often from ovaries obtained at the slaughterhouse). But instead of combining it with sperm, they remove the nucleus (which contains the oocytes’s genes). This leaves behind the other components necessary for the initial stages of embryo development. Scientists then add the nucleus or cell from the donor animal that has the desirable traits the farmer wishes to copy. After a few other steps, the donor nucleus fuses with the ooplast (the oocytes whose nucleus has been removed), and if all goes well, starts dividing, and an embryo begins to form. The embryo is then implanted in the uterus of a surrogate dam (again the same as with in vitro fertilization), which carries it to term. ("Dam" is a term that livestock breeders use to refer to the female parent of an animal). The clone is delivered just like any other baby animal.[/quote]
Jesus was destined to suffer horribly - publicly humiliated, tortured and crucified, perhaps words can't describe the intensity of his pain, both physical and psychological - and yet God didn't ask Mary to have an abortion.
That said, hell does make you wish you were never born!
Also, what's the deal with Christian martyrdom? The martyr's logic: I'd rather not live than
Interesting; considering your usual religious take on things. I would have put you in for going with the one becomes two, the two becomes three, etc. Ergo, we all come from one.
Perhaps, but she wasn't after child support, nor was Jesus made from a weekend of fun, so perhaps not the same value attachment there eh.
I will throw in a theory here.
Spirit creates soul, which fills the mind, creating consciousness. The mind needs a housing and means through which to experience life, thereby increasing learning, hence the requirement of a body. The body, as housing for the soul to achieve experiential learning, is created by the biological union of the parents at the behest of the spirit wishing to incarnate in this current reality, therefore the physical union results in conception at the next available opportunity. Abortion could be interpreted as the parental unit effectively canceling that cosmic contract, unless the experiential goal of the spirit/soul union was to experience being aborted and adding that to the multitude of other death experiences.
Body and soul are not the same and therefore do not change in tandem. The body is the vessel through which the soul gathers experiential knowledge so that it may return this knowledge to the spirit.
Cool eh!
Pathetically bad.
It's already been established that the god of the old testament is a bit of a bastard.
But even supposing that there is a god who sacrificed himself for our sins, the comparison with a child who's suffering achieves nothing so dramatic, who's suffering will help no one, utterly fails.
What stands out is that the Christian God isn't a hypocrite. Of course being a God, ultimately meant that the Jesus' suffering doesn't carry the same weight as a human's. In fact it sounds like a farce, a scam, a fraud divine.
Quoting Banno
:up:
Jesus had nothing to lose at all (being divine meant that he couldn't actually be hurt/killed). That's not a sacrifice is it?
Yet, I can't shake off the feeling that there's some authenticity to Jesus' suffering. The via dolorosa meant/means something. Are we not, as some Christians claim, all children of God?
These aspects of the problem seem irrelevant. The thing is Jesus was going to end up on a wooden cross somewhere in the desert after being tortured. Yet, God didn't do what most parents would've done - a life of suffering is pointless as suiciders will avouch.
Read my reply to Banno and tim wood for further clarification of my (revised) position.
Well, no. He presumably did suffer. Even if "crucification is a doddle".
The point is that his suffering had a purpose, while the suffering of a child raised in poverty need not.
We're all God's children: If Jesus' suffering/death meant zilch, the same goes for us. If, on the other hand, Jesus' trials and tribulations had a purpose, so too does ours.
However, relating to the thread again, there is no point in having a high court if it won't make final decisions, might as well go to Crowley: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law". Really helpful supreme court.
We're talking about law here; rules for everyone, not just Christians. Your argument assumes a Christian hegemony, it assume the primacy of a Christian perspective. It lacks respect for the views of non-christians. In that regard it is immoral.
Here's an argument:
Imagine X wants to murder Y.
Options for X:
1. X kills Y in the now.
2. X goes back in time and kills Y's parents [Grandfather paradox of time travel]
3. X causes/induces Y's mom to abort when Y's a fetus [Abortion]
That abortion (3) appears in the list of ways X could "murder" Y. That must mean something, right?
To your new argument, what do you think it means? Draw your conclusion. Explain how you think it helps your case.
That analogy is easily distinguished with relevant differences.
#1: Y is not living inside of X's body; illegal.
#2. Y is not living inside of X's body; illegal.
#3. Y is not living inside of X's body; illegal.
Notice how you introduced parents and mom as third parties with no consideration for them whatsoever? That's what anti-abortion people do. Let me rephrase it properly for you:
Y is living inside of X's body, X kills Y; Legal, moral, ethical.
The US Constitution guarantees freedom from government-involvement in religious affairs--clear separation of Church and State. The Texas law certainly involves the state in what is primarily a religious issue (not just when life begins but when personhood begins, adult autonomy (reproductive decision making), the right to privacy, and more. The Texan government has decided in favor of extremely intrusive involvement in (what many consider) private, individual, reproductive decision-making.
However, it doesn't seem reasonable to ignore the religious makeup of Texas. "According to the Pew Research Center in 2014, Christianity was the largest religion (77%).[62][63] The following largest were the irreligious (18%), nothing in particular (13%), Judaism (1%), Islam (1%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism and other religions at less than 1 percent each."
The 77% of Texas Christians tilt strongly toward the conservative end of the spectrum. What percentage of belief, political views, or practice does it take to achieve hegemony? It seems like believers have it there. My congressional district in Minnesota votes about 80% Democratic-Farm-Labor. Do we have hegemony?
Just to clarify, I strongly disapprove of the Texas law on abortion, am absolutely pro-choice. I don't pray, don't believe in heaven or hell, and a divinely managed creation. Pretty much an atheist. Minnesota is somewhat less religious, and more liberal at that, than Texas, but the Lutherans and Catholics (et al) run things.
Any.
Hegemony would occur when a law adopts christian values instead of secular values.
According to this poll, the abortion debate is driven by the absolutists minority on both sides.
This poll shows that hegemony goes to the pro-abortion position--nationally, maybe not locally.
The issue is that one's religious views are irrelevant to social policy. "Hegemony" was used to indicate the dominance of one religious view over others - the breach of the constitution you spoke of.
Eventually a woman from Texas will have to travel to get an abortion. How far, though? To Ohio?
Now
X= Robert, 39 year old male.
Y= tapeworm, living in Robert's small intestine for the past year, now causing cramps and making Robert finally aware of Y's existence.
Your argument supports the continuation of Robert's tapeworm infestation on the ground that killing the tapeworm is immoral. Notice, you can still keep the time travel, it will change nothing.
The obvious return is that the tapeworm isn't a human, however, neither is the fetus as it is still in development. The claim that it will become a human presupposes that nothing will happen to interrupt said developmental process. This is a weak position as a great many things can interrupt this process, medical, or spontaneous, abortion being one of them.
I will also posit that the tapeworm is at least as concerned about it's continued life as is the fetus.
Yes. I thought you'd understand without me saying so that you'd made a good point.
The pro-life camp largely consists of Christians I'm told, from the Bible belt that too.
Question 1: What happened to separation of Church and State in those regions? It seems America has its own home-grown religious zealots tucked away in the deep south. An Americanistan ruled by christian sharia law. :chin: Looks like a ticking time bomb to me.
Question 2: What about Christian ethics is inappropriate? Christian ethics has been at the forefront of what I call the ethicization of science and commerce, at least in the Western world. That's a plus in my book. Without Christianity, scientists and business people would be lacking a moral compass. The consequences of that, I'm sure, you're fully aware of: Even with Christianity the situation is bad; without Christianity, it would've been much, much worse. View the Christian anti-abortion movement in this wider ethical movement, and it's not as bad as the pro-choice camp makes it out to be.
Quoting James Riley
Yes. Please don't get me wrong. I respect the rights of women. I may have been a little sexist in my youth but that's thousands of years ago, I've matured (it seems for the better).
I'm pro-choice for now but still would like the pro-life side to mount a strong opposition for the simple reason that it puts pressure on scientists/medical community to come up with a different solution, a solution that's more nuanced, that's more in keeping with our sophisticated worldview, than simply expelling a living fetus, a potential person, from the uterus.
As for my thought experiment, a simple question: If you wanted me dead, making my mom abort me when I'm a fetus is an option, no? [Terminator movie franchise]
Please read my reply to James Riley above.
What my thought experiment is supposed to demonstrate is:
For a person out to get you,
1. You never having been born is "better" than having to kill you after. If something seems "better" to an evil person, it must be morally worse
2. Abortion provides a loophole for future time traveling murderers. All they have to do to off someone is go back in time and cause the target's mom to have an abortion. Such time traveling murderers would go scot-free as no crime would've been committed (if abortion is legal). This may already be happening. :chin:
There are a lot of female anti-abortion advocates as well, though. In fact, I don't think Texas could end legal abortion without either the help or apathy of women.
As I opined long ago in this thread, the problem is getting dragged down into nuance, different solutions, sophisticated world views. Pro-choice people just need to stipulate to all the arguments of the pro-life crowd and say "Tough: Every human being has an unfettered right to do whatever they want with any other human being that resides within their body."
Getting dragged down in silliness about sentience, viability, when life begins, blah blah blah is all a diversion from the simple fact that every human being has (should have) an unfettered right to do whatever they want with any other human being that resides within their body.
Why would you say that? You give me the impression that you're man and whatever sex/gender I may be, I've never personally undergone an abortion. In short, both of us have little understanding what it's actually like to have one.
I've seen women who sought abortion. Believe you me, some had this :sad: or this :cry: expression on their faces. Truth be told I've never encountered a pregnant client at an abortion clinic with this :grin: or :rofl: expression on their faces.
Women take the matter of terminating a pregnancy very seriously. They know, deep down in their hearts, there's something cruel, morally suspect, about abortion. It's just that they've been, for one reason or another, forced into a corner.
Because it's none of our business.
Quoting Agent Smith
It's none of our business.
Quoting Agent Smith
It's none of our business.
Quoting Agent Smith
It's their business.
Quoting Agent Smith
Because other people don't mind their own business.
Right. End of story, full stop. Period.
Quoting Agent Smith
True. If, before birth, she wants our help, or, after birth, then we help. But when the human being is living inside her body, she has carte blanche. Choice.
This may be a sour grapes kinda thing for me but choice is overrated. What's the point in being able to choose when you make all the bad choices? I'm going out on a limb here and say that I'd rather have no choice than have a choice and mess it up.
The point is, not having other people make the choice for you. If you look up to, admire, and respect those people, then you can choose to do what they say. If you think they are FOS, then you get to make your own choice, mistake, or not. If you want to go out on that limb, then I have a bridge I want to sell you. I have decided that you better give me all your money. Better you do that than have a choice and mess it up.
P.S. In the U.S., we pride ourselves on our freedom to make mistakes. If you are a women that regrets having aborted: Lesson learned. If you are a man who knocked up a women who aborted against your wishes, then you failed in your choice of women: Lesson learned.
:up: Nevertheless, I see it as a duty to help those who can't think for themsleves and that includes those who don't understand the implications of their choices. Even if I come off as a nosey parker, I feel obliged to share my take with someone grappling with an issue. People (women for this discussion) need to hear the whole story to make an intelligent choice.
As for giving you all my money, how do I know you'll use it well? We're in the same boat I'm afraid.
:ok: Freedom, brand America! :up: I'm afraid the quote that follows applies to Americans as well.
[quote=George Orwell][...]the choice for human beings is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.[/quote]
That sucks!
"can't think for themselves" "don't understand the implications of their choices" "need to hear" "intelligent choices" ????????????
You'd make a wonderful citizen in an authoritarian state. I'm not going to spend any more time destroying your sense of duty or obligation, any more than I would try to talk sense to a missionary who wants to spread his word to some pre-contact Amazonian tribe. Suffice it to say, I will shed no tears to find out you taste like chicken.
It does not apply to anyone because there is no such thing as evil. That doesn't suck.
Time for me to bow out. Have a nice day. See ya around James Riley. :smile:
And here's an argument for it which is similarly vacuous: Hitler
[Quoting Agent Smith
Ever read any Tertullian? A Christian, considered one of the Founders of the Church. He wrote of a crowd of Christians who showed up at the residence of a Roman magistrate, demanding that he have them killed. They wanted to die, you see, certain that death at the hands of a Roman official would instantly send them to heaven. The logic of the fanatic. It's not surprising that many Pagans considered Christianity to be a kind of death cult.
The Roman sent the crowd away, telling them that if they wanted to die they could find rope by which to hang themselves and cliffs from which they could leap to their deaths.
.
[quote=On a red shirt, on a beautiful girl]Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.[/quote]
Everybody knows the truth, it's just that it's taking a helluva long time to accept it. People are in denial.
Living organism inside a hosts body that the host does not want living inside it. By removing that organism from the host it will die. Yep, that is a parasite.
As for the murder scenario, there is much less satisfaction, and therefore entertainment value, in eliminating someone via abortion. It would be a complete let down, so much so that it would be pointless. Your theory would only be appealing to non-murder types, which negates the value of it.
I would take that one step further, people can do whatever they want with whatever in in their body. Sell your organs if that is your thing. Maybe your kid needs university more than you need your second kidney, your call, not mine.
Not really. Let me play it out for you:
I look like I do. My risk factors are X
She looks like she does, her risk factors are X
We have sex, and conception occurs. Nothing about me has changed. Her hormones are shifting...
a month later,
she has put on a few pounds, hormones are shifting, emotions are shifting, and her risk factors are increasing. She has added different vitamins to her diet and some foods she used to love are offensive to her now, her taste has shifted.
I look the same, I feel the same, my risk factors are the same.
Repeat that for 9 months
Just before birth she has gained 30 (or more) pounds, runs various medical risks, has stretch marks, mood swings, has been quite uncomfortable for the last 2 months, remains emotionally labile and still needs extra vitamins and has bizarre food tastes.
I am the same. No changes, just doing my thing.
At birth she is in pain, parts of her are tearing, she may need surgery, she may actually die, she may suffer a stroke. She may (likely) never return to her pre-pregnant condition. She may have post-partum depression, or worse, psychosis. She may be suicidal.
I am the same, still doing my thing.
Also, at any point in this process, I can go to Mexico and find another girl if I like, totally an option.
Tell me again how I should have a say over what happens to her.
The only qualifier I will make to this statement is that if she is using drugs/alcohol while pregnant that will harm the child I should be able to mandate her to stop until the child is born. That is a far worse crime than abortion.
Having said that, if she wants to give up the child to abortion and I (the father) want it, that should be a no brainer.
it's called learning and development. If you never make a bad call, you never learn how to make any call at all. That seems very sad, but if that's where you want to be, I know a few facilities that will take all your rights away and give you an itinerary for your life. Lots of drugs too.
:100: :up:
I agree, especially if the state is not willing or able to articulate a persuasive and compelling state interest. In the case of abortion, suicide, organ transplant, and other issues, I don't think any state interest can override the interests of the individual. If, however, the state can show that an activity, or failure to engage in a certain activity presents an existential threat to the state itself, or to the fundamental interests of those the state represents, then it can impose itself upon the individual. The state, just like an individual, has a right to be wrong (prohibition) but it can also then stand to be corrected. In the case of pandemics and plagues and insurgency and incitement and insurrection and, in some cases, even convenience (like keeping insurance premiums down via seat belts, smoking premiums, etc.) then the state can act.
Anyway, we have institutions and entities (courts, ACLU?, etc.) designed to winnow those questions.
We have cards that allow us to donate our organs if we wish, there are movements trying to have mandatory organ harvesting upon death, and yet it is illegal for people to sell their organs in life, when the gain from the sale may improve and potentially prolong their life. Apparently the issue is not the validity of organs relocating, just that said relocation is not allowed to benefit the person losing the organ, because that would be reasonable and we can't have that
It might also reveal how society is failing it's constituents if a shit-ton of poor people are lining up to sell their stuff. Like students selling semen or eggs to make tuition, or houseless selling blood to eat. It would reveal what a failure certain societies are, and we definitely can't have that. :gasp:
Some cannibals call us "long pig" so we must taste more like pork. We're probably tasty, provided we're well fed and properly cooked.
:lol: I stand corrected!
Having an abortion is a serious enough decision for the woman's well-being, no doubt. But what is aborted is not yet a person -- in most cases, abortions occur in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy. Pro-life sentiment calls for burial of a miscarriage. It is just manipulative sentimentality.
The doctrine that 'personhood' begins at conception is noxious. It makes the woman the slave of the fertilized egg, for which she is supposed to feel fulfilled, no matter the real-world circumstances of conception or consequences for her life. "Pro-life" is "anti-choice" in more ways than one. It's a life-sentence, so to speak.
It isn't just about women, either. Partnered men and women want to have successful families. Too many children is a problem the world-over, in terms of successful families where children reach adulthood and the parents are not destroyed in the process. Unlimited fecundity is a burden that poor people can not support. So, yes -- birth control, abortion, sterilization -- all are helpful remedies, and they all stand against conservative religious doctrine.
Damnation on conservative religious doctrine!!!
All I know is, they are lucky Jesus is the Prince of Peace or he'd come down here and slap the beejeezus out of them!
I heard that too!
Strawman I think but, given the circumstances, so what?
That's a relief!
Bacteria: Single-celled organisms.
Zygote: Single-celled proto-human.
Homicidal = Murderous (women who abort).
:chin: