quote:If abortion is completely banned, women will still get abortions. These abortions will necessarily be less safe. Therefore, by banning abortion we are needlessly endangering at least some of their lives.
The blood would not be on the state's hands, Twinky. The people getting illegal abortions would be endangering themselves.
You're also ignoring the possibility that making it illegal would also discourage many from getting abortions, thus saving lives as well.
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posted
It's fascinating to watch the dogpiling begin when I haven't even stated my actual position. [Edit: To be crystal clear: The " " implies a jest! A funny! I don't actually feel dogpiled.]
Jim-Me:
quote:Define "needless"
It's needless because it wouldn't have to be done. With the kind of tight control I suggested, it could be easily mitigated, given that abortion infrastructure is already in place. It would take no additional effort on anyone's part (other than lawyers) to propose an abortion ban with the caveat both you and Dagonee advocate. So why not do it?
Dagonee:
quote:But the first situation is murder. The analogy isn't meaningless. It is, in fact, highly transformative. The fact that people are more likely to envision the second scenario as murder is exactly the attitude many pro-life people are trying to change.
You don't see why saying "abortion is murder" immediately polarizes abortion debates rather than fostering civil discussion? There's nothing wrong with trying to change attitudes, but accusing every woman who has had an abortion of being an accessory to murder isn't a very good way of going about it.
Let's say abortion was banned and carried penalties equivalent to what is conventionally understood as being murder. Would the law be retroactive?
Rakeesh:
quote:The blood would not be on the state's hands, Twinky. The people getting illegal abortions would be endangering themselves.
There we disagree, but as we already know you're more libertarian than I am.
quote:You're also ignoring the possibility that making it illegal would also discourage many from getting abortions, thus saving lives as well.
Not at all. I'm simply saying that the number of lives saved or ended in this case is not relevant. [Added: Because of what I said to Jim-Me about effort. It takes almost nothing to add a "in cases of physical harm" clause to an abortion ban.]
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Added: Finally, I haven't even said that I'd oppose an abortion ban; don't assume that I do. (I'm not going to say one way or the other at the moment because I'm not sure.)
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quote:Let's say abortion was banned and carried penalties equivalent to what is conventionally understood as being murder. Would the law be retroactive?
Of course not. Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional.
quote:It would take no additional effort on anyone's part (other than lawyers) to propose an abortion ban with the caveat both you and Dagonee advocate. So why not do it?
I'm not sure I understand this part. The needless deaths Jim-Me was referring to were, I believe, those of people seeking illegal elective abortions, not life-saving ones. Since we all agree life-saving abortions should be legal, the next point of analysis is whether your restriction would have any effect on the injuries caused by illegal elective abortion.
I can't for the life of me see why it would. Are you saying that having a life of the mother exception will make people who want a non-life-saving abortion less likely to seek one than if a general ban existed?
I think I must be missing your point somehow, but I don't see where.
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quote:The needless deaths Jim-Me was referring to were, I believe, those of people seeking illegal elective abortions, not life-saving ones.
When I used the word "needless" I meant all women seeking abortions in the case of a full ban (which nobody is advocating). I think that's the source of the misunderstanding.
Edit: This is totally unrelated, but do you have to formally learn Latin to become a lawyer? (I wouldn't think so, but I'm suddenly curious.)
Edit 2: This post still isn't clear. "Endangering at least some lives needlessly" means "endangering the lives of women who seek illegal abortions to prevent physical harm to themselves in the case of a full ban." Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I don't think that any ban would not have that caveat.
as for why it isn't proposed there are a couple of reasons:
1) the court has not overturned Roe v. Wade so almost any law will be struck down by the existing legal precedent
2) pro-choice groups pour an enourmous amount of resources into preventing any limitation or regulation of abortion.
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quote:This is totally unrelated, but do you have to formally learn Latin to become a lawyer?
Nope, not at all. It's not even that useful.
quote:This post still isn't clear. "Endangering at least some lives needlessly" means "endangering the lives of women who seek illegal abortions to prevent physical harm to themselves in the case of a full ban."
Then I think no one is disagreeing with you. Now, if Jim-Me can either confirm my interpretation of his post or correct it, we can go get a beer.
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posted
While the issue of when life begins is sorted out... how about putting a stop to late-term and partial birth abortions now? Why wait?
I don't see how anyone could actually believe that because part of the child's body is still in the mother's body that it is not murder to "abort" the baby at that time. That child no longer relies on its mother's body to survive. The methods of these "abortions" is absolutely appalling.
Banning that would be really good in the meantime.
posted
Jim-Me: of course, even given both those things, at the current moment states are repeatedly passing laws attempting to make abortion as illegal as they feel they can reach.
If Roe v Wade were overturned, abortion would be completely illegal except in some very extenuating circumstances in over half the states in the union within a year, similarly to what's happened with states and gay marriage. Legislatures surf the waves they see.
At the same time, I predict we'd see a remarkable lack of non-movement towards providing greater funding for adoption services and birth control.
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How much has to remain in the birth canal for the child not to be alive? If there's a cesarian procedure being performed, how high can the baby be lifted while the doctor works before the baby becomes alive?
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posted
Many states do ban late term and the so-called "partial birth" abortions (which is a completely non-medical term used to stir up outrage).
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"Partial-birth abortion" is a horrible misnomer. I'd agree with a ban on late-term abortions, but that ban would by definition cover so-called "partial-birth abortions."
The thing about partial-birth abortions is that the banned procedure and the procedure that ban advocates proposed to replace it with are both... ugh. Awful to even read about, let alone see pictures of.
Warning: this is graphic.
In what has come to be called a "partial-birth abortion," the fetus is pulled most of the way down the birth canal by the doctor before being killed (typically by puncturing the base of the skull and sucking the brain out). It is not, as the term implies, an abortion conducted during a natural birth. The "replacement" procedure that "partial-birth abortion" ban advocates have to paint as more humane to get the ban passed is equally disturbing -- the doctor dismembers the fetus inside the uterus before extracting it piecemeal. To my mind both are horrible; the only difference is that the former is less hazardous to the mother because the doctor does not have to insert any sharp metal implements into her uterus.
End of graphic stuff.
I would be fine with a ban on late-term abortions -- with the caveat, of course, that if the mother's life is at risk and there is no way to get the fetus out alive and into an incubator or something, then I suppose it could be permissible.
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posted
It might not be the medical term, but it's a fairly accurate description of some of the techniques.
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Dagonee, another reason that I don't like talking in terms of "abortion = murder" is that it raises other questions, such as: If abortion is murder, then is miscarriage involuntary manslaughter?
I definitely think (and assume you'd agree) that abortion, whether it's permitted or not, should have its own legal category.
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: So there aren't abortions occuring at times of natural birth?
This I don't know, but that's not what the term "partial-birth abortion" refers to, which is why it's so misleading.
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posted
I didn't know it wasn't a medical term, but the practice is still appalling to me. Although, so are other methods of late-term abortion. If I had to pick a date, I'd say illegalize abortion by the beginning of the third trimester.
I'm not saying I think it would be okay in the first or the second, just that it's clearer that it's wrong in the third. At least it is to me.
I'm personally pro-life, but for laws, I'm mostly pro-choice. Up to a point. When it comes to the third trimester, I have less and less sympathy for the mother. It's bad enough that the couple was irresponsible enough to get pregnant when they weren't ready to care for a child, but it's even worse that they waited around to do something about it. By the 3rd trimester, you're almost done being pregnant. Just have the baby and adopt it out already. Sheesh.
quote:You ask the very questions that the supreme court is there to determine.
Yep. And they determined it wrongly. They also didn't determine it the way you suggested ("life begins at birth").
quote:As for making it illegal on whole I think the focus should be much more on stopping war and the indescrimate loss of life it causes. Like they say you can not be "pro life" and pro war.
So until war is over we can't advocate anything else politically?
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quote:Dagonee, another reason that I don't like talking in terms of "abortion = murder" is that it raises other questions, such as: If abortion is murder, then is miscarriage involuntary manslaughter?
This is insulting and an absolutely horrific thing to say, especially considering the recent experiences of some of our posters.
A miscarriage is not manslaughter any more than a man who dies of natural causes in his bed can be said to have been "manslaughtered." If we can't see a difference between a natural death that no one could predict or prevent and an abortion which is a deliberate act to terminate a pregnancy, then there's nothing worth talking about at all.
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quote:Ohh and Dag you still have not explained how some rights are shared like the right to life but others like the freedom from abuse or harm are not shared by the unborn?
Brettly are you not aware of fetal protection acts which do precisely that?
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quote:As for the until war is over... Actually you can advocate for anything you want. Hypocrisy flows uninhibited.
Wow, only two pages in and the H word surfaces. The primary pro-life premise is that unborn children are living humans due certain protections that most other living humans are afforded. That premise says nothing about whether or not killing a person in a particular situation is morally or legally justified. You say you are a pacifist. Do you think we should do away with self-defense exceptions to the homicide laws?
quote:Ohh and Dag you still have not explained how some rights are shared like the right to life but others like the freedom from abuse or harm are not shared by the unborn?
If you'd just point me to the law that makes it illegal for parents to smoke near their children, I'd be happy to compare the two situations. Until then, I'm not going to compare two mythical laws.
I still await the logic underlying your position that the difference in physical location of less than a meter determines whether a child is worth protecting or not.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13:At the same time, I predict we'd see a remarkable lack of non-movement towards providing greater funding for adoption services and birth control.
is a "lack of non-movement" a movement?
I really think pro lifers give more in these areas than they get credit for.
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posted
Someone should point out to Brettly that in cases where the fetus is not terminated by a doctor, a person abusing the fetus can be and often is prosecuted for murder or mannslaughter.
or perhaps I just did?
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posted
at 25 million and rising, how much innocent life has to be shed through abortion for you to care about it, Brettly? Your assertion that life begins at birth is not even legal fiction, as shown by my mention earlier of prosecution in abuse leading to miscarriage... and I think we can all agree that the fetus is innocent...
Kwea's argument that the rights of the mother trump the rights of the fetus is the accurate statement of the pro-choice legal position...
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quote:I really think pro lifers give more in these areas than they get credit for.
Yes, I think this is a common misunderstanding.
For example, the church I go to gives monthly to a pro-life organization. The organization specifically does not get involved in politics and does not do clinic protests of any kind. All they do is try to care for, love, and provide services to pregnant women. They offer free pregnancy testing, they offer counseling, and for women that are in financial need they do things like hold baby showers to help a pregnant woman get the things she needs to care for her baby. I've participated in several of them, buying diapers, blankets, and clothing. I've talked to the girls, held one while she cried because two years before she'd had an abortion and couldn't believe we were willing to help her now.
It really bothers me when people say pro-life supporters don't care about the women, only about the unborn baby. It's very, very distressing, because I care very much for the women in these situations. Many times we are the only people who would help them, I've been told more than once that a boyfriend abandoned them when they refused to have an abortion, or in one case a girl's family kicked her out because she wouldn't have one. She was 17, pregnant, alone and terrified and needed help. We gave it to her.
And the ones that do have abortions - we care about them too. The organization offers post-abortion counselling for those that need it. No one is ever sent away from the test center with the words "If you get an abortion you're a murderer." They're treated with compassion and caring and told we will be there to support them no matter what they decide.
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quote:Smoking while pregnant has a fundamentally different effect on an unborn child compared to second hand smoke. Both are awful but they are very different.
Millions upon millions of babies have been born to smoking mothers. There's a huge difference between statistically increasing a risk (something that smoking near a child does as well) and vacuuming someone out of a womb.
quote:Location has to do with is the child still actually just an extension of the mother or is the child a separate fully functioning and supported being. This gets into where the Supreme court tried to draw the line. Ya know the whole w/o artificial means of support.
The hundreds of thousands of people who rely on artificial life support to live fulfilling lives will be glad to know you don't consider them separate fully-functioning beings.
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posted
Let's look at this from a completely different perspective.
Part 1
Who has late-term abortions? Are these people who have plenty of medical care and money? Or, more likely, are these people who A) are ignorant about pregnancy (don't realize they're pregnant until it's extremely obvious) B) need to save up for the procedure and/or C) aren't sure how to go about getting a procedure if that's what they want?
How many people do you know of would like to go through the physical discomforts of pregnancy for months and months before having an abortion?
Thinking about it, I don't conclude that people have late-term abortions because they figure that that's the fun way to do it. They do it because for some reason they aren't able to get an abortion earlier.
So completely eliminating late-term abortion takes it away from the people who arguably need the most help and need a child the least.
Part 2
If Roe Vs. Wade is repealed and the states make their own decisions about whether one can have an abotion, then likely places like California will have legal abortions and places like Alabama will not allow abortions in most cases.
So what that means is women in Alabama who have enough money to fly to California for an abortion will be free to have one. Women who are poor will have to have an illegal, dangerous procedure or have a child.
Or as one of my friends did, smoke, drink, use cocaine etc. with the hopes that they miscarry.
How is this fair to poor people?
Part 3
Let's say that abortion is banned throughout the US. No one anywhere is allowed to have an abortion unless they're raped, or it was a case of incest, or their life is in danger.
If the stakes are high enough, people might well resort to staging a rape, as one girl did to protect herself from her pro-life father in a recent episode of Law & Order SVU.
Part 4a
Some of you have tried to argue that the government has a stake in having children born. But do you think that the mother might have a higher stake in not having a baby? And mightn't the woman's stake in not having a baby be more immediate and vital?
Part 4b
If a woman does not want to have a child, do you think maybe she has a good reason for not wanting to have one?
And if she's obligated to have one because there is an abortion ban where she lives, don't you think that would have a negative effect on both her life and the child's life when it's born? Isn't it possible that she would resent the child for screwing up her life?
Part 4c
Several people have attempted to demonstrate that a ban on abortion leads to higher crime rates fifteen years down the line. For a really convincing explanation of this view, I recommend you pick up a book called Freakonomics. It's currently on the bestseller lists, and is easily available on amazon.
Conclusion
Having a child is an important, utterly life-changing event. I doubt if any of you would advocate that someone have a child for a trivial reason. I think "I'm having a baby because I happened to get pregnant" is not a good reason to have one.
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quote:Originally posted by Brettly10: Location has to do with is the child still actually just an extension of the mother or is the child a separate fully functioning and supported being.
It is never just an extension of the mother. It is a separate biological, genetically human entity from the moment of conception. You may call it a parasite, but it is not physically a part of the mother anymore than a tapeworm.
quote: This gets into where the Supreme court tried to draw the line. Ya know the whole w/o artificial means of support.
You are moving very quickly towards viability being the point of personhood... is that what you intend?
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quote:at 25 million and rising, how much innocent life has to be shed through abortion for you to care about it, Brettly?
That number would be 0 to those who do not believe an unborn child is an "innocent life" yet. There is certainly no consensus on the matter, nor any definitive argument one way or another. Even the Supreme Court admits this.
Perhaps life truly begins on your 3rd birthday... I certainly don't remember much before then.
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posted
I thought most Christians didn't believe babies were strictly innocent, either. Don't they still have the sin of the fall on them? Or am I confused?
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quote:Originally posted by dean: If the stakes are high enough, people might well resort to staging a rape, as one girl did to protect herself from her pro-life father in a recent episode of Law & Order SVU.
Or like Norma McCorvey did in bringing the original lawsuit?
There's a good reason, IMO, right there to overturn-- the original judgement was made based on false testimony.
But, Dean, all your points make perfect sense if you completely ignore the fetus or presume better killed quickly than made to suffer later in life and no sense at all if you consider the the fetus to be a human baby.
I can guarantee you will suffer in the future, Dean. Trying to prevent this does not in any way become an argument for your death. I suffered some nasty and insidious abuse as a child that screwed me up badly enough that it took me 30 years to figure out that I had a horrific childhood, rather than a "normal" one and that, had anyone been aware of what happened to me, even back then I would almost certainly have been removed from my parents' custody.
And I guarantee you I am quite glad to not have been aborted.
Right now the law accords or denies that status at the whim of the mother... doesn't that bother you *more* in the case of a mother resentful of her pregnancy?
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Who has late-term abortions? Are these people who have plenty of medical care and money? Or, more likely, are these people who A) are ignorant about pregnancy (don't realize they're pregnant until it's extremely obvious) B) need to save up for the procedure and/or C) aren't sure how to go about getting a procedure if that's what they want?
How many people do you know of would like to go through the physical discomforts of pregnancy for months and months before having an abortion?
Thinking about it, I don't conclude that people have late-term abortions because they figure that that's the fun way to do it. They do it because for some reason they aren't able to get an abortion earlier.
So completely eliminating late-term abortion takes it away from the people who arguably need the most help and need a child the least.
I still have little sympathy for those people. They're having sex, so they can be responsible enough to deal with the consequences.
quote:Part 2
If Roe Vs. Wade is repealed and the states make their own decisions about whether one can have an abotion, then likely places like California will have legal abortions and places like Alabama will not allow abortions in most cases.
So what that means is women in Alabama who have enough money to fly to California for an abortion will be free to have one. Women who are poor will have to have an illegal, dangerous procedure or have a child.
Or as one of my friends did, smoke, drink, use cocaine etc. with the hopes that they miscarry.
How is this fair to poor people?
Just because rich people can more easily break a law doesn't in itself mean the law shouldn't be.
quote:Part 3
Let's say that abortion is banned throughout the US. No one anywhere is allowed to have an abortion unless they're raped, or it was a case of incest, or their life is in danger.
If the stakes are high enough, people might well resort to staging a rape, as one girl did to protect herself from her pro-life father in a recent episode of Law & Order SVU.
Same argument. Just because people will break the law doesn't mean it shouldn't be.
quote:Part 4a
Some of you have tried to argue that the government has a stake in having children born. But do you think that the mother might have a higher stake in not having a baby? And mightn't the woman's stake in not having a baby be more immediate and vital?
If that stake is so high for the mother, WHY is she having sex?
quote:Part 4b
If a woman does not want to have a child, do you think maybe she has a good reason for not wanting to have one?
And if she's obligated to have one because there is an abortion ban where she lives, don't you think that would have a negative effect on both her life and the child's life when it's born? Isn't it possible that she would resent the child for screwing up her life?
If she doesn't want a child, she shouldn't be having sex--or at the very least, using multiple methods of birth control. The obligation comes from getting herself into that situation in the first place. She shouldn't resent the child. She should resent herself for having sex when having a child would be SUCH an inconvenience.
quote:Part 4c
Several people have attempted to demonstrate that a ban on abortion leads to higher crime rates fifteen years down the line. For a really convincing explanation of this view, I recommend you pick up a book called Freakonomics. It's currently on the bestseller lists, and is easily available on amazon.
I don't know what you're referring to here. Higher crime rates because the children that are born turn out to be criminals?? If you're going to be bad parents, don't have sex. If you have sex and the woman gets pregnant, give it up for adoption... or grow up.
quote:Conclusion
Having a child is an important, utterly life-changing event. I doubt if any of you would advocate that someone have a child for a trivial reason. I think "I'm having a baby because I happened to get pregnant" is not a good reason to have one.
Yes. It's important and utterly life changing. So don't have sex until you're ready to deal with having children. You don't HAPPEN to get pregnant. It's not complete chance...because you CHOOSE to play the game.
Disclaimer because some people need one: I'm talking about pregnancies NOT involving rape, of course.
quote:Having a child is an important, utterly life-changing event. I doubt if any of you would advocate that someone have a child for a trivial reason. I think "I'm having a baby because I happened to get pregnant" is not a good reason to have one.
Incidently, I believe that if someone has gotten to the point where they are already pregnant, they have already really waited too long to decide they don't want to have a baby. That decision should have already been made, before that point is reached. Why not just wait until the baby is already born, see if you want it, and then kill it if you don't?
No, the appropriate time to decide you don't want a baby is BEFORE you have sex. If we really care so much about unwanted pregnancies then what we should to is regulate when you can and cannot have sex, rather than waiting until the damage may already be done and regulating when you can or cannot have abortions. As much as I do think people have a right to have sex if they want to, I think that right is far less important than respecting even the chance that an unborn child has a right to live.
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quote:Having a child is an important, utterly life-changing event. I doubt if any of you would advocate that someone have a child for a trivial reason. I think "I'm having a baby because I happened to get pregnant" is not a good reason to have one.
Incidently, I believe that if someone has gotten to the point where they are already pregnant, they have already really waited too long to decide they don't want to have a baby. That decision should have already been made, before that point is reached. Why not just wait until the baby is already born, see if you want it, and then kill it if you don't?
No, the appropriate time to decide you don't want a baby is BEFORE you have sex. If we really care so much about unwanted pregnancies then what we should to is regulate when you can and cannot have sex, rather than waiting until the damage may already be done and regulating when you can or cannot have abortions. As much as I do think people have a right to have sex if they want to, I think that right is far less important than respecting even the chance that an unborn child has a right to live.
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quote:That number would be 0 to those who do not believe an unborn child is an "innocent life" yet. There is certainly no consensus on the matter, nor any definitive argument one way or another. Even the Supreme Court admits this.
Perhaps life truly begins on your 3rd birthday... I certainly don't remember much before then.
Tres, I think we both understand that. The point is that someone criticizing someone else's priorities needs to take into account the other person's belief on when life begins. To Jim-Me and me, there have been ~25,000,000 deaths due to Roe. This explains why we might spend effort to overturn it rather than stopping the death penalty.
quote:This is insulting and an absolutely horrific thing to say, especially considering the recent experiences of some of our posters.
I considered that before posting, but decided it was sufficiently on-topic and hypothetical to be okay.
But more importantly, if we're willing to call people who have had what are essentially abortions of convenience -- like my parents -- "murderers," then I don't think you get to call my post "horrific and insulting." As long as we're considering people's personal experiences, I'll thank you not to accuse my parents of homicide.
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And no, I give pro-lifers considerable credit in instances. I give legislatures which are going to get little political gain for something little credit.
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quote:Dag Having a baby after smoking does not mean you didn't harm them. I mean come on Dag that is my point. Anything less than killing a fetus in uteri is ok???? Only abortion crosses that line?
No. You were the one trying to make illogical parallels between child protection laws and the lack of fetal protection laws to somehow show that unborn children should be allowed to be aborted. My point is that we allow things that are dangerous to children; we allow things that are dangerous to unborn children. We don't allow children to be killed; we shouldn't allow unborn children to be killed.
quote:Life support implies at some point the life was not needing support. Maybe not but either way it has to do with where to draw the line.
Why? Are you really saying the beginning of personhood changes based on our technological capabilities?
quote:Really are you saying conception is that point???
Yes. I'm surprised there's confusion on that point.
quote:The supreme court does not believe that a fertilized egg constitutes a separate human life. But hey if you disagree with that POV obviously you are going to feel differently. The whole belief of "pulling the plug" would also mean murder by your argument. I feel that it is not murder to end life support so my views are consistent on this.
Of course, I'm not advocating that SCOTUS decide that human life begins at conception. I'm advocating SCOTUS allow our designated elected officials to make the decision about when legal protection attaches.
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posted
Twinky I'll thank you not to accuse me of saying something I didn't say.
Review my post and show where I called anyone, especially your parents, murderers.
I compared miscarriage to an abortion which I then called
quote:a deliberate act to terminate a pregnancy
I did not call it murder.
Then, in a later post, I made a point of saying that the pro-life organization I support and work with doesn't call people murderers.
So before you get accusatory and defensive with me, you'd better review what I've written. Nowhere have I EVER called people who get abortions murderers. I specifically avoid that term, because I don't think that people who get abortions are murderers. For one thing, murder is a legal term, and since abortion is not illegal, people who get them can't be guilty of murder, now can they?
For another, I think people who are in the situation where they feel they must terminate a pregnancy deserve my compassion and calling them murderers isn't very compassionate.
So, please show me where I have done something "horrific and insulting" to your parents before you accuse me of it.
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posted
You said I'd posted something horrific and insulting given the recent personal experiences of various people on the board. But that's hardly fair, since already in this thread people (TomD, for instance) have already equated abortion to murder, which as far as I'm concerned is equivalently insulting -- and note that I didn't mention it at that stage, because in this thread people are speaking in a large part hypothetically and things are generally civil, so I was fine with it.
I'm glad you don't think it's fair to use the term. What I don't see is how you get to call what I wrote "horrific and insulting" when it's quite in line with the rest of the thread's content.
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posted
It's the insinuation that a miscarriage is somehow criminal or should be punished. For a woman who's recently miscarried, that is definitely insulting and horrifically painful to read. If you can't see that, and you don't care about others' feelings, then so be it.
But you don't get to accuse me of not caring for others' feelings on this matter, because I do. I'm not responsible for what Tom has posted, I'm responsible for the word choices I make. I've called no one a murderer. You, however, have likened a miscarriage to a crime. That, to me, is definitely horrific and insulting to the people who've experienced it.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:It's the insinuation that a miscarriage is somehow criminal or should be punished. For a woman who's recently miscarried, that is definitely insulting and horrifically painful to read. If you can't see that, and you don't care about others' feelings, then so be it.
I think for the comparison between a miscarriage and and manslaughter to be valid, the miscarriage would have to have been caused by negligence on the part of the parents. To be convicted of manslaughter it takes more than just a death occuring - it requires that death to be your fault, resulting from significant negligence on your part.
quote:Wait we should allow the elected officials to decide what is right not the Supreme Court. Oh man if that was the case we would still be in segragation. Women might not have the right to vote and a million other horrible things would be ok. The point is elected officials should not be making those decisions.
But elected officials DID decide both of those! They both stem from amendments voted on by members of Congress.
The Supreme Court did broaden the effect of those amendments in ways the original voters probably did not intend, but only because they did not forsee all the ways in which their new law would apply - not because the Supreme Court simply decided it would be "right" to broaden them more than they were.
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The legislature specifically gave women the right to vote by constitutional amendment. That was NOT a judicial decision.
The Courts did end segregation because they said and explained how "separate but equal" violated a ratified constitutional amendment.
In Roe v. Wade, they said the right to privacy "emanates from the penumbra" of the 14th amendment... which I still find a fascinating concept. They must be truly special to have found something in the light of a shadow.
Twinky and Belle, you guys know I love you both... Peace, please? there's a lot of room for serious feelings to get stirred up in this debate and it absolutely *has* to be approached gently and carefully.
Twinky, you are absolutely right that "Murderer" is inflammatory and counter productive. Belle, you never used that word and were merely looking out for the jatraquera who recently had a miscarriage. Both of you are trying to protect people's feelings... take deep breaths, count to ten, and continue to do so.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Wait we should allow the elected officials to decide what is right not the Supreme Court. Oh man if that was the case we would still be in segragation.
When you want to discuss what I actually said, let me know. If you're confused as to why the situations are different, take a look at the 14th amendment some time, specifically the equal protection clause. I have not advocated doing away with judicial review.
quote:Women might not have the right to vote and a million other horrible things would be ok.
Where did you study history? State legislatures took the lead in granting women the vote, and it became nationwide when an amendment was passed to the Constitution. The judiciary had nothing to do with it.
quote:The point is elected officials should not be making those decisions. The supreme court doesn't worry about polls or re-election so they are the best to decide for the long term.
You prefer it be 9 people appointed for life? You may not be so sanguine about it if a Republican wins the next presidential election. Stevens will likely go, very likely leaving a hard anti-Roe majority. There's a reason a 50-year old got the nomination yesterday.
quote:I think for the comparison between a miscarriage and and manslaughter to be valid, the miscarriage would have to have been caused by negligence on the part of the parents. To be convicted of manslaughter it takes more than just a death occuring - it requires that death to be your fault, resulting from significant negligence on your part.
Quick review of homicide law:
Traditionally, there were two crimes:
Murder, the intentional killing of a human with malice, and manslaughter, the intention killing of a human being in the heat of passion.
Later, murder was divided into murder in the first degree, which is premeditated murder, and second degree murder, which was defined as all other murders. Still later, "reckless disregard (or depraved indifference) for human life" was added as a qualifiying mental state for murder 2.
Involuntary manslaughter did not get divided off from manslaughter - it was simply given a similar name. It requires something akin to gross negligence. The original manslaughter was modified to include general recklessness.
Under the model penal code, there is first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide. Some states have divided manslaughter into first and second degree.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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If you're going to be bad parents, don't have sex. If you have sex and the woman gets pregnant, give it up for adoption... or grow up.
