posted
mack, Zan, and fil, you all make pretty good points. However, I don't use faith or Christianity or the Bible to justify my stance, because I no longer consider myself Christian. Therefore, I don't think it hypocritical to say that it's OK to kill some humans and not others. You may think I'm wrong, but hypocrisy is when your actions are inconsistent with your views, and I don't believe they are. Just because my conclusions are different from yours doesn't mean they are hypocritical.
From a secular standpoint, I believe it is possible to lose your standing as a human being through your inhuman actions, and so to lose your right to life. Is it vengeance? Yeah. But, while I haven't known the absolute worst segment of society (I guess), I know from firsthand experience that there are monsters, that there are people who do nothing but destroy, and the way we protect ourselves from the destroyers is to destroy them, as dispassionately as we would destroy a rabid dog.
Maybe I would be more comfortable with protecting ourselves from this element by locking them away permanently if such people really did stay locked away permanently. But it is clear that in our legal system, destroyers of lives get sentences that are too lenient to begin with, and typically don't even serve these sentences to completion. Getting back to the rabid dog example, how come we don't inarcerate rabid dogs, but simply destroy them? Maybe it's impractical to create housing for all the rabid creatures, or maybe it's more humane to simply end their misery.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I wasn't aware of the distinction between a guardian for her and a guardian for the fetus. Your logic is sound; a guardian for her is all that is needed under current legal definitions.
I don't agree with your bottom line, but one way or another that decision is not up to either of us.
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posted
Icarus, I'm sorry if I insinuated that you were being hypocritacal. Actually, I don't look at my stance as being Christian, although I am. I just don't think we have the right to take another life if we aren't in jeopardy. That's why I think "life sentance without parole" should mean exactly what it says.
Bob, I agree with you that Jeb has done some pretty underhanded things here. But I don't agree with your bottom line, either.
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Icky, I don't base my belief on faith for that. Instead, it's just how I feel as a human being.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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My view on the death penalty is that it doesn't provide solutions, and has a number problems associated with it.
The death penalty is supposedly a painless affair for the convict, when the crime committed often inflicts a great deal of pain on the victims. The punishment hardly matches the crime.
Family members of the victim are often allowed to watch the execution. How can the family get any sense of retribution from the convict when he feels no pain? And even if they did garner some sort of vengeful sastisfaction, I find it morally reprehensible that they could feel sated by watching such an execution.
If the family doesn't feel satisfied (or does, and is, in my opinion, morally corrupt), and the convict doesn't feel any semblance of the pain they created from their actions, who is truly punished, and who benefits?
The state benefits, and the convict's family is punished. The state no longer has to support the convict, and while the expense of an execution is high, the cost of living for a typical criminal far exceeds it. The family of the convict is punished by having a loved one, however wretched he may be, taken from them. I can't imagine the pain felt by a parent, spouse, or child when the state kills a person they love.
And there is a basic hypocracy involved with capital punishment, as well. If the state sponsors execution, the killing of a human being, how can killing be a crime? Or are we part of a criminal government?
Saying all that, I do support the death penalty in certain situations, mostly international war crimes and for certain acts of treason.
[EDIT] Like fil, I'm pro-choice publicly, but personally I would never think of asking a spouse for an abortion unless there was some health complication with her or the child.
posted
I don't think it's fair to consider people morally "reprehensible" or "corrupt" because of what helps them deal with their grief. Neither of us can know what that level of grief is like. It shouldn't be too hard to imagine that grief of that sort can make a person want some things that to you seem inappropriate.
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quote: The state benefits, and the convict's family is punished. The state no longer has to support the convict, and while the expense of an execution is high, the cost of living for a typical criminal far exceeds it.
quote:Getting back to the rabid dog example, how come we don't inarcerate rabid dogs, but simply destroy them? Maybe it's impractical to create housing for all the rabid creatures, or maybe it's more humane to simply end their misery.
Well, first of all, rabid dogs are infectious and have a disease that's going to kill them very soon. I think maybe a better example in this case would dogs that are killed after savagely attacking human beings.
But the fact is the reason we kill them rather than house them is convenience. It's cheaper - with animals, anyway. Since animals don't have any legal standing we can kill them for any or no reason at all, as long as we do it humanely - although if most of us got to witness the deaths of the poultry, beef, etc that we eat, we'd probably wonder what kind of definition of "humane" was being used in the industry.
The law draws a sharp line between animals and persons. You're not alone in thinking maybe there are some cases in which the line should be moved or blurred. Animal rights activists would like to give legal standing and protections to some animals. Some ethicists would like to deny the legal status of personhood to infants with disabilities, people with alzheimers, people of any age with severe mental retardation. The reason's the same - to protect some from being killed while making the killing of others easier.
Personally, I'm very comfortable with the line where it is.
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The issue here is the horrific legal precedent that could be set, making assumptions that could circumvent the right to ANY abortion.
Posts: 622 | Registered: Dec 2001
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No. This woman is incapable of making a logical, rational decision. They would withold abortion from anyone who was mentally instable or mentally incapable of such a serious decision. They did (finally) give her a guardian to act in her stead. This is also done in other situations where the person in question cannot make the decision for his or herself (not just with abortions). Were she able to make her own decision, she would be allowed to. When she cannot, they are acting conservatively and trying to preserve what they can for the good of the most.
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posted
So even if the decision itself is just we still shouldn't do it because somehow it could lead to greater infringement on abortion which most people don't exactly consider a fundamental right anyway?
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: They would withold abortion from anyone who was mentally instable or mentally incapable of such a serious decision.
No they wouldn't. If the woman had been in a car accident and were comatose and had living parents and was raped, the parents would make the decision. I wonder if Jeb! would want a guardian for that situation, also.
I think that if these people really gave a crap about "people," this woman wouldn't have been without a guardian for 4 years. And if she'd had a guardian, then the fetus wouldn't have needed one. Unless of course, he's actually trying to say that if your wife is in a coma, you aren't allowed to make decisions for her. I certainly hope that the fetus' guardian has the same beliefs you do.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
If the woman in the coma would have her parents as a guardian and this woman is about as able to make decisions for herself, why doesn't she have a guardian? Who seriously thought that woman with the mental capacity of a 5 year old should be without a guardian?
And if the woman with parents/guardians doesn't need a guardian for her fetus, why does this mentally retarded woman?
Somewhere, somehow the system broke down and Jeb! is trying to take advantage of it, rather than fix it.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Been doing some reading on this. JDS (the mother) is a bit clearer to me as a person (as you know by now, that is important to me). She is a 22 year old woman with cerebral palsey and autism. She is also on psychotropic medications. She was abandoned as a child and pretty much sounds like a ward of the state, living in one nursing home since she was 3 years old. She apparently has no family to step in.
Here is a new twist that scares me a bit with this. Jeb! (I like that exclamation point) asked the courts to assign two guardians, one for the fetus and one for the woman. This happened first that I could find in May and at that time, she was 6 months pregnant. Two women (I haven't found out much about them beyond their names) filed for guardianship of the fetus, though only one (the one NOT making the big stink whose name is Wixtrom) wanted to look into guardianship AFTER the child was born.
Anyway, the scary part. One of the reasons that it appears they are doing this is not just because of the decision of the mother. That point is moot because she has a guardian making decisions and that guardian has clearly made the decision to let the pregnancy proceed naturally. So why pursue guardianship for the fetus (beyond the political, which I won't rule out)? One of the potential reasons I found was that one of the potential guarians of the fetus cited concerns that the mother's need for medication or her medical conditions could be harmful to the baby. What does this mean? Could it mean that the guardian for the fetus would get involved if the mother's life was at risk because of the fetus? Or if the fetus was at risk because of the care for the mother, such as saying that JDS shouldn't take her medications or JDS has to do...something. What this sounds mysteriously like is that where the mother's health is at risk, they would rather see something dreadful happen to the mother vs. harm the unborn baby.
This isn't just paranoia. A person with CP has physical issues that could be very complicated by the changes the body needs to make during pregnancy. Who knows what the potential risk is to the fetus with all the medications she is on? And who knows, when it gets to the end, that the mother can survive childbirth?
In short, would there be two guardians battling to save the life of their wards if there were concerns? Clearly, even most pro-life folks would say that if the mother's health was at risk, her needs must be taken first. But in this case, the disabled mother's life is devalued due to disability, in my humble opinion.
Maybe I am building a case out of straw, but why else would a fetus need a guardian if the mother is either competent...like my wife, for example...or incompetent but already has a guardian...like JDS? Can't think of anything else. Politics (most likely) or bad ethics (read Peter Singer lately?).
posted
fil, I agree with you. My only point was that if a healthy woman suddenly became incapictated and had family, someone would appointed her guardian. That didn't happen. When JDS aged out of foster care, the state basically just dumped her. She should have had a guardian all along and if she had, or if she had family, the question of a guardian for the fetus wouldn't have even come up. And rather than Jeb! realizing that there was a problem that needed to be fixed, he is using the situation to push a political agenda.
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posted
My God, it's bad enough that this poor woman was abandoned, has CP and autism, and was raped while institutionalized. Now she's an unknowing political pawn in the abortion cultural war?
I hope this fetal guardianship thing backfires on the people using her and her child to advance their political goals. It's bad politics and bad ethics.
Fil is right, her disabilities have led people to discount her humanity. That's the only reason I can see that anyone would appoint a guardian for the fetus. Has anyone ever heard of a guardian appointed to a fetus? And what if the guardians disagree? Some poor judge would have to sort the whole mess out. What a sad situation.
posted
Right mack, but most foster kids aren't mentally 5 when the age out of the system. A 5 year old should have a guardian.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Mac's right, though (can I call you mac?). There are plenty of foster kids that are 'dumped' at age 18, mental age of 5 or not. There are plenty of kids who live in the foster care system that need support even though they are 18 and may not even have any mental disabilities! Most typical 18 year olds aren't unceremoniosly kicked out of their support system by their caregivers, but that is literally what our local DCF will at times do, though at least my agency (County Board of Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities) is working very hard to id kids early that will need our support at age 18 to prevent the very incident that is happening in Florida. Typically, 18 year olds still have access to the folks that raised them but that isn't the case with most kids in the foster care system. That is the saddest situation of all.
But this only gets the obvious kids like JDS was, someone with clearly identified disabilities and need for continued support. JDS got lost down there because she lived in a nursing home since age 3 and didn't need to move at 18. Where kids at 18 get identified is when a foster agency/home says they can't support an 18 year old and we get the call. But in the case of JDS, she just hung out and no one cared to notice. I think at LEAST as a part of this mess that nursing home should get a stern looking into.
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