Do you agree with Roe v. Wade?

this question is not simply "Are you pro-choice?"

I've seen people argue in many places, including here, that while they are pro-choice, they do not agree with Roe v. Wade as a judicial decision, saying that the Supreme Court overstepped it's bounaries in making it.

You're talking about "judicial activism". That's a catch phrase used by Repugs who cry when the justices don't give them what they want. It's a completely bullshit concept.

I just really don't care. As long as the courts rule and agree with me I honestly don't care if the grounds are constitutional, hence I agree with Roe v. Wade and have never thought if the court decision was right.

I thought the same way about Lawrence v. Texas, I didn't bother to listen to the nonsense about whether the decision was constititutional or not, the laws were stupid as hell and needed to go by any means.

I just really don't care. As long as the courts rule and agree with me I honestly don't care if the grounds are constitutional, hence I agree with Roe v. Wade and have never thought if the court decision was right.

One thing that used to hold back Repubs power was the idea that the Constitution is the law of the land.

If they give up that idea like you have, we're in big trouble.

We'll have an official religion, speech restrictions, and all sorts of social conservatism thrust on us.

The kind of pragmatism you express is asking for trouble in the long run.

If the time ever comes that "conservative" judges have the same attitude as "liberal" judges about putting their personal beliefs in the Constitution, the America you hope to see will be long gone forever.

Roy Moore anyone?

Their autonomy over their own bodies includes a right to privacy.

If someone else has the right to make decisions about your body, you are not a free adult person. You are either a slave, a child, a prisoner or otherwise owned by a branch of a government-judicial or executive branch.

If someone else has the right to make decisions about your body, you are not a free adult person. You are either a slave, a child, a prisoner or otherwise owned by a branch of a government-judicial or executive branch.

To me, this arguement is superior to the one used in Roe v Wade.

"If someone else has the right to make decisions about your body, you are not a free adult person. You are either a slave, a child, a prisoner or otherwise owned by a branch of a government-judicial or executive branch."

Yep, it's all about power.

The power one body has over another body.

The power of one stonger body to destroy the much more vulnerable body that is within her.

Isn't it interesting how "children" are lumped together with "slaves, prisoners, and those owned by the government"? That explains a lot.

Roe v. Wade permits states to regulate -- or even ban -- abortions during the final trimester of a pregnancy.

If, for instance, a state were to ban all third trimester abortions where there is no risk to the woman's health or life, and where there is no fetal anomoly, then Roe v. Wade would not be violated.

In such a case, of course, women do not have autonomy over their own bodies -- they must continue their pregnancies whether they want to or not, or risk putting the abortionist who performs the abortion in violation of the law.

So, since Roe v. Wade does not give women complete autonomy over their bodies during all stages of pregnancy -- up to and including the birth process -- and does not give women the power to destroy their unborn children for any and all reasons during all stages of pregnancy, I presume you voted not in this poll.

Am I correct?

Its funny how many people I meet that say they agree with Roe vs. Wade but have absolutely no clue what it says. The phrase "its my body and I can do whatever I want with it" is a political slogan that never appears in any legislation or judicial cases, including Roe.

If it had no restrictions I would not. No question.

Thank you for your post.

I hope you do not mind if I ask you a question.

The question is this: Do you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?

Not absolute either way. To say that life begins at conception rules out birth control pills, the morning after pill, etc., which I find unreasonable.

However, I do think that the fetus deserves to be considered as a person far sooner than many liberals would like to admit. Viability is one milestone. Medical science is pushing that milestone further and further back.

Personally, I think abortion should be allowed only in the first trimester. Other restrictions I feel should be left to the states.

Only in case of rape-incest-moms life endangered.

as a male, i've always stayed on the sidelines here re: this issue, but...

if one considers abortion "wrong", what difference would it make if the foetus was conceived by rape or incest? Does the foetus never rise to the status of "personhood" or gain a soul (assuming the objection is over moral issues) under those circumstances? Is the foetus on half-human? if you DO consider the foetus equal to a foetus conceived under other circumstances, then what is your logic for allowing abortions at all?

or is it that abortion is only marginally "wrong" (by whatever logic), and that those conditions tip the scale just enough to justify an abortion?

for the record: as an atheist pro-choicer, i have no problem with giving a woman the right to choose, and only ask these questions in an attempt to understand anothers thinking.

It's sort of like telling people who are alive and walking around today and whose mothers were raped that they should not have been allowed to be born.

It stigmitizes people whose very lives are the result of rape or incests.

I cringe a little bit whenver I hear this.

It's sort of like telling people who are alive and walking around today and whose mothers were raped that they should not have been allowed to be born.

Could you guide me to the section in Roe v. Wade where the court says that children of rape victims should not be allowed to be born?

I have never much cared for herring -- red or otherwise.

So I don't have any malt vinegar to offer you.

I'm not sure where it is, exactly, that I said that the court said in Roe v. Wade that children of rape victims should not allowed to be born.

Perhaps if you could guide me to the place where I said that, I could guide you to the section of Roe v Wade where the court said that.

Oh, and by the way, one other thing -- just why is it that you are asking me this?

The easiest way to understand their thinking is to assume a fetus is a person.

Then it becomes murder of an innocent.

Like you, though, I'm an atheist, and I think it takes much more than being a clump of cells to qualify as a person, so I'm pro-choice here.

What disturbs me sometimes though are people that believe person hood begins at conception, but are still pro-choice. My former boss was like this and it disturbed me that he was so pragmatic about the issue. It implied murder is OK if it's convenient.

Whyever in the world would your former boss's position ever bother you?

Isn't abortion all about choice? About autonomy over one's body? Over power?

If so, then why would destroying a person who lives as a parasite within another body not be OK if it were convenient to do so?

I would hope that here would be a natural reluctance to kill another person.

If so, then why would destroying a person who lives as a parasite within another body not be OK if it were convenient to do so?

As far as your parasite comment goes, what would then stop me from killing senior citizens that collect social security? They live off my labor and are therefore "parasites", right?

Again, I don't believe a fetus is a person, so I have no problem with choice.

You're doing a good job explaining, but I'm having a difficult job understanding.

I think I understand you to be saying that you're comfortable with choice (or power) so long as the choice (or exercise of the power) does not involve the killing of a person. Since it is your opinion that a fetus is not a person, I think I hear you saying that you have no problem with whether a woman exercises her power to destroy a fetus or not.

So, I think that I hear you saying that if the fetus were a person, you would not support choice. Do I understand that correctly? I think that is the thing that troubled you about your ex-boss who apparently felt that personhood begins at conception, but was nonetheless por-choice.

Here's the thing I don't understand. There are many on DU who post to threads such as this and who suggest that even if they knew for certain that a fetus was a person, they would, like your ex-boss, remain pro-choice.

Why?

Because for them it is a question of power. It is, after all, their body under discussion. They want the power to control what is inside their body -- even if it were to mean the destruction of a person. Their debate is cast in terms of power -- and, of course, they are the ones with the power, so it is natural that they want to retain the power. They feel that they cannot relinguish even the slightest bit of their power.

So, for instance, when the US Congress debates a bill that would make assaulting a woman and causing the death of her fetus a crime, they will not support it, because doing so could result in the loss of some of their power. What do they support instead? A bill that would make an assault against a woman resultinmg in the death of a fetus a crime against the woman -- so that they retain the power.

I admire you for your position. You at least would be troubled if an abortion resulted in the detruction of a person. But there are those here on DU who would suggest that that position is anti-female, since for them, it does not make a whit's worth of difference whether the fetus is or is not a person.

To them, it is all about holding onto power.

Oh, by the way -- my comment about parasites was an argument often used by pro-choice folks. They consider a fetus to be a parasite -- I think because doing so allows them to assert that they have to have the power to destroy any parasite within their body. I think it is gross to refer to a fetuas as a child, but I have to be careful saying that, lest it bring out the usual posters who accuse me of being a misogynist anti-female, fetus-loving, anti-choice pig.

And one more thing -- people collecting social security do not live off your labor. They made contributions to social security, and are merely collecting what the government had collected, and wisely invested, for them. You should stop maligning social security. Old folks will think you are trying to rob them.

"Because for them it is a question of power. It is, after all, their body under discussion. They want the power to control what is inside their body -- even if it were to mean the destruction of a person. Their debate is cast in terms of power -- and, of course, they are the ones with the power, so it is natural that they want to retain the power. They feel that they cannot relinguish even the slightest bit of their power."

Gee, you could say the same thing about men wanting "power" over women's reproductive rights. It's "natural" that they would want to retain the POWER.

Your arguments reveal the depth of your contempt for women.

Here's a question for you.

If my arguments supposedly "reveal" the depth of what you consider to be "my contempt for women", then does your statement that men wanting power over women's reproductive rights reveal your own profound hatred for men?

have power over my reproductive rights.

I'm so glad to know, smirkeymonkey, that you have not hatred for me. It truly makes my day.

I'm (obviously) not a woman. It's not my gender's decision to make as to what a woman does with her body, since slavery was outlawed.

Remembering that we have to be gender-neutral in application of the laws, let me ask you this. Suppose there were regulations put in place by men regarding a woman's rights of reproductive freedom. Is turnabout fair play? Would it be OK if women banded together (they do compose 52% of the population, after all) and passed legislation requiring men to have vasectomies? After all, if the State can interfere with one gender's reproductive freedom, they can interefere with the other gender's reproducive freedom, right?

suggesting that women should have sterility enforced upon them?

I think not.

So I really do not see what forced vasectomies has to do with this discussion at all.

But since you raised gender neutrality, let me ask you this --

Does the following situation strike you at all as being less than gender neutral:

Man and woman have sex.

Woman becomes pregnant.

At that point, man has no choice regarding whether or not he wants the responsibilities of parenthood.

Woman has at least six months to decide whether she wants responsibilities of parenthood.

If woman decides she doesn't, neither man nor woman assumes responsibilities of parenthood.

If woman decides she does want the responsibilities of parenthood, the man is forced - sometimes against his will -- to assume responsibilities of parenthood, or to provide "support".

The man's reproductive rights -- the right to decide, after having sex -- whether or not to assume the responsibilities of parenthood -- are taken away from him.

The woman asserts power of reproductive rights over the man and the power of life and death over the unborn child.

and a man's reproductive freedom ends when he contributes the sperm.

He has a choice: supply the sperm or not.

"I am convinced abortion is murder, but I still think it should be legal."

It drives me nuts, so I don't ask about it anymore.

It is about the equal enforcement of a law. The ruling determined that the laws against abortion in question were not equally enforceable. No state has since enacted any other laws because of this stipulation.
The moral, ethical, and medical decisions regarding abortion remain in the hands of the women affected by their personal choice. Not in the hands of men seeking to gain the favor of their religious constituents.

I thought the court ruled that the consitution included an implied right of privacy and so implied the right to abortion.

In either case the decision was not about "abortion".

The First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments together indicate that the people have an inalienable right to privacy. This privacy covers medical decisions - the precedent for this decision was Griswold v. Connecticut (birth control). It's since been used for rights such as the right to die.

What I say to my conservative friends is that without a universal human right of privacy, there can be no "private property."

No "right" can originate from some inanimate object. Dirt has no "right." Unless there is an inalienable right to privacy, no person can be secure in his or her home since the 'home' itself can only accrue the attribute of 'private' if it's a human right.

If "rights" are attached to property, then "rights" are for sale -- and are therefore not "rights" but privileges. Any difference between the "rights" of the poorest and the "rights" of the wealthiest cannot be regarded as a "right" but as a privilege.

______________

"Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others."
—— F. A. Hayek, 1956 Preface to "The Road to Serfdom"

The Right to Privacy is not absolute.

"Unless there is an inalienable right to privacy, no person can be secure in his or her home since the 'home' itself can only accrue the attribute of 'private' if it's a human right."

The Constitution recognizes that the right of privacy is not an absolute right. The Bill of Rights guarantees a right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure. Presumably, reasonable searches and seizures would pass Constitutional muster.

Your right to be secure in your own home does not extend to things like spousal or child abuse, or to methamphetamine manufacture or to many other things.

The right to privacy also does not allow a person to decide major life issues on her/his own. If a person were to assert that his view of life is that children should be beaten severely every day, he would have a most difficult time finding any judge who would say that the right of privacy permits him to have that point of view and that having that point of view allows him to beat his own children.

... a person's body as sovereign territory. Without such sovereignty, there can be no exercise of privacy. Assuming "personhood," I regard the 'citizens' of that territory to be under sovereign control. Solely by emigration do those 'citizens' come under the sovereign authority of the US government. Beyond that, there's only diplomacy and foreign aid. That's it.

My body is not sovereign territory, and neither is yours, at least if you are in the USA.

I cannot, without violating the law, ingest certain substances into my body.

Even those substances which I may ingest legally, I may not ingest in certain places (For instance, the laws of the City of New York forbid me from ingesting tobacco smoke inside bars and resautrants).

The State already has made your body and mine somewhat less than sovereign, in my estimation.

It's perfectly legal (at least here) to be stoned. It's NOT legal to possess marijuana. And it's not legal to drive while impared.

It's legal to be drunk off your ass. It's not legal to be drunk off your ass IN PUBLIC.

With your tobacco analogy, let me ask you this. If ingesting tobacco smoke in a bar is illegal, then if one person lights up, and everybody else breathes second-hand smoke, they ALL can be arrested, right? After all, they've ingested tobacco smoke in a bar, right?

Roe v Wade said there is a right to privacy and therefore a right to an abortion hidden within a penumbra (shadow) of the constitution, specifically the 4th, 9th and 14th Amendments. It's not there, but it kind of is in a shadowy kind of way.

It's nonsense of course. About the most nonsensical decision the Supreme Court ever came up with.

Taking the 14th Amendment for instance...

The Thirteenth Amendment was passed to end slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed soon after to make former slaves (freedmen) citizens of the states in which they resided. It also banned many Confederate leaders from running for elective office, and it cancelled the Confederate War debt.

The Fifteenth Amendment was passed soon after. It gave freedmen the right to vote.

No, the right to an abortion is not hidden like a penumbrum inside the 14th Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment was about the close of the Civil War. It had absolutely nothing to do with abortion.

If judges can just make stuff up, we're all in danger because the nonsensical ruling you agree with this time can just as easily be a nonsensical ruling that works against you next time. Wait till some Republican judges some day rule that there's a penumbrum hidden in the 17th Amendment (Direct Election of Senators) that allows the government to arrest anyone protesting the president.

So what should be done about abortion laws? They should be passed just like every other laws, by elected Representatives, Senators, and state legislators. Those are the guys who are supposed to pass laws, not judges hunting for penumbrums.

First of all, the right to privacy is derived from the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, combined with the clear statement in the Ninth Amendment that not only the enumerated rights are protected under the Constitution.

Secondly, you're wrong about the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, even though that really doesn't matter much in Supreme Court jurisprudence.

From my Constitutional Law textbook:
"By the time Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in June 1866, any doubt that one of the principal aims of Reconstruction was to remedy the deficiencies of the structural theory of the Bill of Rights had vanished. ...

The Republican leadership that drafted and steered the Fourteenth Amendment to passage left no doubt that its provisions reading, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," were intended to make the Bill of Rights binding upon the states. Thaddeus Stevens, a Radical Republican from Pennsylvania and leading spokesperson for the Fourteenth Amendment, summarized its purpose this way:
'I can hardly believe that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these provisions is just. They are all asserted, in some form or other, in out Declaration or organic law. But the Constitution limits only the action of Congress, and is not a limitation on the States. This amendment supplies that defect, and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States, so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all.'

John A. Bingham, a congressman from Ohio, and the primary author of the Fourteenth Amendment, made clear from the start that Section 1 was designed "to protect by national law the privileges and immunities of all the citizens of the Republic and the inborn rights of every person within its jurisdiction whenever the same shall be abridged or denied by the unconstitutional acts of any State." Bingham responded to further inquiries about the Fourteenth Amendment's intent, nothing that the believed it overruled Barron v. Baltimore, and linked the "privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States" with the Bill of Rights... Akhil Reed Amar has noted that over thirty Republican representatives and senators in the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses voiced similar sentiments to those of Stevens and Bingham."

If judges can just make stuff up, we're all in danger because the nonsensical ruling you agree with this time can just as easily be a nonsensical ruling that works against you next time. Wait till some Republican judges some day rule that there's a penumbrum hidden in the 17th Amendment (Direct Election of Senators) that allows the government to arrest anyone protesting the president.

Wrong... so wrong. There has to be some basis for the decision, and it has to fall under the 9th or 10th Amendments (rights given to the people, powers not delegated given to the states). First, from the decision that established the right to privacy, Griswold v. Connecticut (dealing with contraception).

From Justice Douglas's majority decision:
"The State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach - indeed, the freedom of the entire university community. Without those peripheral rights, the specific rights would be less secure...
The First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. In like context, we have protected forms of "association" that are not political in the customary sense, but pertain to the social, legal, and economic benefit of the members.
Previous cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in a time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

If you can make a similarly strong case for your straw-man, slippery-slope, bullshit example, I'd love to see it.

So what should be done about abortion laws? They should be passed just like every other laws, by elected Representatives, Senators, and state legislators. Those are the guys who are supposed to pass laws, not judges hunting for penumbrums.

Read Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," especially the parts about the tyranny of the majority. The Constitution is about the protection of minority rights from this tyranny, and that promise will not be upheld if left in the hands of the very majority that minorities must be protected against.

Constitution where it would be protected against the potential fifth Supreme Court vote in the future. (Dare to dream . . . )

I voted YES but I'm personally pro-life. I think the right to privacy does have to be seen as part of the constitution. As for being pro-life, I am opposed to abortion (and the death penalty, and euthanasia) I just don't think it's any of my business what YOU do with your body.

But why do you throw in euthanasia with abortion and capital punishment? In the first two, someone else makes a decision to terminate someone else's life, or life in potential. In euthanasia, the person who dies has elected to take their own life.

because I fear an emotionally vulnerable person could be taken advantage of by greedy (or cruel) family. I could easily see an isolated person being pressured to "end it all now."

I am not opposed to a doctor, with the family's knowledge, easing a person's death when it is imminent. My father suffered a slow death due to liver cancer about 5 years ago and we let his doctor give him more pain killer than was safe, knowing that the alternative was him dying slower and in more pain.

First, my sympathies in the loss of your father. My own father died a few years ago of COPD.

You mention in your post that "we" let the doctor administer more pain killer than was safe. I don't mean to be insensitive here, but had your father expressed his wishes regarding this?

Let me explain before anybody freaks out.

I think that abortion should have been recognized for what it is, a fundamental human right for a woman to control what happens to her body at all times.

The idea of it being a privacy issue is bullshit. As a privacy issue, the privacy issue is weighed against the interest of the State. The State shouldn't have ANY interest in what a woman does with her body. It's strictly the woman's decision.

If SCOTUS had ruled this way, we wouldn't be dealing with the weakness of the Roe decision, or this so-called "PBA" crap. Abortion would be left entirely to the woman, as an exercise of her fundamental human rights, from conception until birth.


since this option isn't available on the poll, I'm not voting.

than the belief that some have that they have the right to make decisions for women about their own bodies. it seems so goddamn BASIC.

but some people keep up the nauseatingly transparent pretense that they just do not understand, if you know what I mean. :eyes:

The gestational gestapo, to borrow a term from veganwitch.

it's amazingly how some who adopt a consistently misogynistic pov become so much offended when correctly described as misogynists :shrug: it seems the label of the thing is more problematic than the thing itself :eyes:

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Sheesh, I can't catch a break around here.

And when precisely did I, Monica_L, direct invective at you, outinforce? I've looked and looked and looked all over this thread and nowhere did I see invective, vile names, or even benign remarks that could possibly be construed to be directed personally at you. :shrug:

And here I've been for weeks lighting candles and praying that your problem would clear up and all would be well again. O8) B-)

I must have been mistaken.

I was actually under the impression that one of your posts to this thread (the post that used the invective "gestational gestapo" was directed my way. I'm so glad to learn that it was not. But I still do wonder why you chose to attack another poster, instead of simply advancing your own argument on the subject.

And it appears that you are far more religious than I. I would never light candles or say prayers concerning another person's problem, but I appreciate your concern on my own behalf.

I, too, have been equally concerned about your problem, and I do hope that my mantras and channeling of good vibes your way have been efficacious. If there is more that I can do to assist you in clearing up your problem, please do let me know.

Drug abuse laws. Public indecency laws. Intoxication laws. The state makes laws about what women can and can't do with their bodies all the time. Men too.

that retricts men from mastrubation (the wanton destruction of potential human life). it's the only law that would be comparable to retricting women's reproductive choices.

It's all so really simple, isn't it?

The state never has any interest in protecting fetal life. Why did I not see that before?

Fetuses, after all, are merely inconsequential, vulnerable, powerless and not really even human.

Why should they ever be allowed any consideration of protection from the far more powerful woman in whose body they parasitically live? They (the fetuses, that is) are nothing. They have no power.

And, of course, the state never has any reason to protect the weak, defenseless, and powerless against the strong and the mighty.

"Fetuses, after all, are merely inconsequential, vulnerable, powerless and not really even human."

"And, of course, the state never has any reason to protect the weak, defenseless, and powerless against the strong and the mighty."

You obviously don't believe the first sentence I quoted. Because if you did, the second sentence I quoted from you would make it plain that the State would have an interest in preventing people from having tumors, et cetera, removed from people.

A fetus isn't a person. It's tissue, nothing more. As such, the State has NO interest in protecting it. Fatty tissue, hair, and dermal tissue all have the complete human DNA included in it. Using the current level of technology, it's theoretically possible for a single cell of this material to be turned into a human being. Does that mean the State can come in and tell you that you can't have liposuction, a skin scrub, or comb your hair?

Have you ever seen firsthand the physical effects of pregnancy on a woman? The effects are drastic. Seven months ago, I wouldn't have understood just how drastic the changes are. Watching my wife's pregnancy grow has really driven this home to me.

Women are not incubators. They're actual human beings. I know that's hard to understand, but hey, them's the facts. Forcing a woman to serve as an incubator against her will is so morally repugnant that words alone cannot convey my disgust at the idea.

I don't get why it's so hard for some people to understand that women are more than just empty vessels. I am childless by choice, and attitudes like that are part of the reason why. Someone made a good point on about the only sensible Melissa Rowland thread yesterday, that a lot of people seem to think pregnant women are community property. Goddess forbid a live, grown woman should have rights over some tissue living inside her.

It's woman hate, no matter how much they want to sugarcoat it.

it's the fetus that belongs to the state...fuck the woman. she hardly matters at all to those who value the life of the fetus over her life.
notice the absolute comtempt towards women reflected in the comments our most notable anti-abortion foe...it's quite telling.

that government interference if fine when women are concerned but in other areas he wants the gov. to stay out of it.

Thanks so much, OKNancy, for sharing what you believe my beliefs to be.

You are, however, quite wrong.

Fostered by male-dominated society for thousands of years. Until the past century or so, women were viewed merely as chattel, whose only purpose was to be a planting ground for men's "seed."

The fetus was always viewed as more important than the woman who carried it. Evidence of this can be seen in the Cesarian section, which, when originally used, saved the life of the fetus, but was lethal to the woman who carried it.


The movement to overturn Roe v. Wade isn't about protecting "life," it's about giving men control of women's wombs again.

my mother died in childbirth (a cesarean) when I was 2 1/2 years old. They doctors knew up front that it would be risky, but it was a catholic hospital and I still don't know to this day whether the choice was hers or theirs. My father and I were both devastated and it changed our lives permanently.

Nobody will talk about it with me, everyone is so secretive. Something was amiss, but I have a feeling that I will only get the real story when someone discloses it upon their deathbed. I have always been haunted by this and it makes this issue very personal for me. So many people were affected by her death, and while I love my brother (who lived) he also grew up without a mother, and the whole thing was very tragic.

A fetus isn't a person.

Such a simple statement to make, and yet does it even occur to you that this is debateable? From your post it would seem that you simply believe that you are right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. That's sounds a lot like many evangelical Christians I know...

My wife and I are going through this right now. She's pregnant with our first child. There's a good possibility from the test results so far that it will have spina bifida if carried to term. We go for definitive testing on the 23rd of this month. I've been with my wife throughtout the entire process, going to her OB/GYN at least every other week, and now every week. I've watched the fetus grow from the size of a grain of rice to where it is now at over a foot long, on ultrasounds performed on every visit. It has internal organs, arms, legs, fingers, toes, et cetera. We've seen and heard it's heart beating and watched it do flips in the womb. We've also seen it kick my wife's bladder with both feet. But if it were taken out of my wife now, it has exactly ZERO chance of survival. It's simply incapable of breathing, even with the very finest medical care.

I base my position on what I've personally seen. I see no way that it could be considered to be a separate human being at this point. It's not a dogmatic belief, it's based upon my personal experience. And it's not based upon a few sentences taken from a work of what I consider to be fiction.

My cigarette lighter is dark blue. This is a fact, not a matter of dogmatic belief. And nothing you can do or say will convince me that my cigarette lighter is really pink, because I can see it, pick it up, taste it if I want, and it's dark blue. Thank you for playing.

I can't imagine going through such a difficult time.

Thank you for offering your perspective.

we're both strong people, and can deal with whatever cards get dealt.

Regardless of the outcome, we're both thrilled about the pregnancy. It's a relief to know that we're both fertile. If this pregnancy doesn't work out, we'll make more. :)

You seem to have a very confused idea of what constitutes a fact and what constitutes an opinion.

That the fetus at a certain level of development cannot survive on its own outside the woman's body is a fact. However, the conclusion that you draw from this fact, namely, that this implies that the fetus is not a person, is merely your opinion. It is an opinion derived from your arbitrary decision to define personhood in a particular way. So by all means, continue on expressing your opinions, but don't for a minute expect the rest of us to agree with you simply because you are taken with the misguided notion that they are not opinions, but "facts".

are not people. What do you call a person who has stopped breathing? A corpse. What do you call something that hasn't breathed? Tissue if it's in the womb, or stillborn if it is out.

If you go into court, charged with murder (which is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being by another human being with malice aforethought), and can sucessfully show that the "human being" you supposedly "killed" was not in fact breathing at the time you supposedly "killed" them, you CANNOT be convicted of murder, EVEN IF YOU ADMIT TO ALL OTHER PARTICULARS. Why? Because they were already DEAD, and therefore are no longer a human being. If it's not breathing, it's not a living human being, since respiration is a vital part of being alive. This holds true if they stopped breathing just a minute before, and there are still cells in their body which are alive. It might have been human at one time, or it might become human later on, but right then and there, it's not.

If my "fact" is opinion, then so is yours. You apparently think that life begins at conception. If we're both just giving our opinion, then don't we HAVE to err on the side of caution? After all, the woman carrying the embryo or fetus IS alive, by any definition, right? So wouldn't the fundamental human rights of the person who is beyond doubt alive trump the rights of tissue that may or may not be alive? And haven't you read the 13th Amendment? It's unconstitutional to require a woman to be a slave of a fetus, just as it's unconstitutional for a woman to be the slave of a man.

I don't believe that life begins at conception.

I merely have a problem with so called "liberals" behaving like God has revealed the absolute truth to them.

As for your breathing standard, it is full of holes. If, for example, you enter a hospital, unplug the respirator of a man that is incapable of breathing on his own, and he dies, you will in fact be charged with murder. Breathing has not been considered the definitive sign of life for over a hundred years. I would say that the definitive sign of life today is more accurately stated to be brain activity. In many circumstances, an individual hooked up to a machine that both pumps his or her blood and performs respiration can be considered very much alive, so long as the brain is still functioning. I say "many circumstances" because there are some obvious circumstances where we as a society have decided that such a person is really dead and should be removed from life support. The parents of a child in a vegetative state, for example, may legally request to remove life support and the doctors that do so will not be charged with murder. The exceptions and legal rules surrounding such decisions are complicated and debated regularly. To describe the variety of opinions that exist as to when a person should be considered dead and when they should be considered alive as "facts" is to be ignorant of this current reality.

Likewise, to describe the variety of opinions that surround abortion issues as "facts" is simply ignorant. The facts surrounding fetal development are well known and undeniable. How we as a society want to interpret those facts, and what rights we believe the fetus should have certain points of development is very much an ongoing debate.

he just needs assistance to do so. Removing the plug from a ventilator in the situation you described is the equivalent of placing a plastic bag over the head of somebody trying to breathe, it removes something necessary for respiration.

"Breathing has not been considered the definitive sign of life for over a hundred years."

It's a necessary bodily function to be alive. I eagerly await your documentation that any living human being remains so when incapable of exchanging oxygen and CO2 in their lungs. BTW, if you subject a human brain that's been removed from a body to electric shocks, synapses WILL fire. That constitutes "brain activity". Is the disembodied brain therefore alive? Would removing the electric shocks constitute murder then?

So sorry but a man on a respirator isn't incapable of breathing he just needs assistance to do so.

Let's apply this idea to a fetus. You've just admitted that being able to breath without assistence is not the proper criteria for being considered alive. As you've said, a man hooked up to a respirator (a machine) is still alive even though he can't breath on his own. Given this, it seems you would have to admit that a fetus at 23 weeks development is alive, as the current record for a surviving child born premature is 23 weeks. Such a fetus, like the man on a respirator, merely requires the "assistence" of a machine. Would you therefore be in favor of banning abortion after the 23rd week?

More importantly, this sitution will merely get worse in time. With improving technology, the age at which a fetus can survive outside the womb will simply continue to drop. In fact, I see little reason to expect that sometime in the next hundred years we will not be perfectly capable of bring a child to term completely artificially. What will you say then, that a child is alive from the moment of conception? I wouldn't, and somehow I doubt you would either.

As for your example of a brain subjected to electric shocks, I would simply place this under the same category as a person in a vegatative state. Such a brain/person isn't really alive. Its an arbitrary opinion of course, but you asked so I answered.

what I said was that cessation of breathing is a sign of death. Fetuses don't breathe. If it hasn't taken a breath, it isn't yet alive.

Starting sometime in the middle of the 2nd trimester they breath amniotic fluid in and out. The fact that they don't breath air is simply a matter of their location. As the poster below noted, it doesn't make any sense to say that simply moving a fetus from inside the womb to outside the womb should somehow change what rights it has.

Just wanted to express my thanks to you for your contributions to this thread. :toast:

between breathing air for respiration and breathing fluid as part of the growing process. And while a fetus is "breathing" amniotic fluid, there's no exchange of oxygen and CO2 through the lungs into the amniotic fluid. Waste products are being introduced and discharged through the mother still. It's not just a matter of location, the metabolic processes of respiration are not taking place there.

It's not just a matter of location, the metabolic processes of respiration are not taking place there.

It is only a matter of location because the only reason the metabolic processes of respiration isn't happening is because of where the fetus is. The minute you change the fetus's environment those lungs start operating. You seem to be missing the point that is being made here by myself and others. In all the cases that we are talking about, THE FETUS DOES NOT CHANGE. If the fetus doesn't change, why would you consider it a person in one circumstance but a non-person in another. Its like saying that you have rights if you're in the living room but the minute you walk into the kitchen you have none. It makes no sense.

"Its like saying that you have rights if you're in the living room but the minute you walk into the kitchen you have none."

It's more like saying that you can cook in the kitchen but not in the living room. If you move the cooking equipment from the kitchen to the living room, the living room becomes the kitchen.

In order for a fetus to be alive as a separate entity, it has to begin respirating. If it hasn't started breathing, it's not alive as a separate and distinct person. In the womb, out of the womb, the location doesn't matter. If it did, then a stillborn fetus would be alive as soon as it leaves the womb, and that's demonstrably not the case.

Once rights attach, they attach permanently. Until they attach, they don't exist. Rights attach as soon as the lungs take in their first breath of air. A newly born baby can have brainwaves, it can have a heartbeat, but if it doesn't take that first gulp of air (with or without assistance), it's still considered to be stillborn.

Because the medical community does NOT stipulate that breathing is the indicator of life. It's brain activity that is the guage, but I'm pretty sure I know why that's not being brought up here.

that states that life continues after respiration stops. Remember, there's more to respiration than a diaphram moving air. There's the exchange of O for CO2 into the blood stream.

But will provide it ASAP. Tried to do a quick search but it's going to take some digging apparently.

To be quite honest, I'm surprised it isn't more widely known.

It is only a matter of location because the only reason the metabolic processes of respiration isn't happening is because of where the fetus is.

And the only reason that the metabolic processes of respiration aren't happening in my grandmother's body is that she's dead. Now, is that any reason to be denying her RIGHTS?

The minute you change the fetus's environment those lungs start operating.

Really? You mean, you've never heard of any that don't? I sure have.

In all the cases that we are talking about, THE FETUS DOES NOT CHANGE.

I'm sure you're aware of the difference between "missing the point" and "calling the point bullshit".

For pity's sake, *I* change all the time. That's the whole nature of nature and all that. Things change. Things that are one thing become something else. An acorn becomes an oak tree. Water becomes ice. Living things become dead things. A human fetus becomes a human being. What didja think all that birds and the bees stuff was all about??

There's no difference between me now and me in my grave 50 years from now, obviously. So why not just bury me now?

Its like saying that you have rights if you're in the living room but the minute you walk into the kitchen you have none. It makes no sense.

You betcha. That one makes no sense at all.

Unfortunately for you and your fellow travellers, it makes perfect sense to say that something that is not capable of exercising rights doesn't have any.

If, instead of walking into the kitchen, I dove into the backyard pool and started breathing water, do ya think I might have "changed"?


Damn, I just love being referred to as an "environment". An "environment" has no rights at all, of course ...

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Starting sometime in the middle of the 2nd trimester they breath amniotic fluid in and out.

What are they -- tadpoles?

That claim is as old as the hills, and as false as Santa Claus. As I understand it.

It's of absolutely zero relevance to anything, but it does show the lengths to which some people (perhaps those to whom Nederland has been listening? quotations and citations please, maybe?) will go to shove their agenda where it isn't wanted.

As I understand it, fetuses "practise" the reflex motion of swallowing, on amniotic fluid.

Of course, if they did breathe amniotic fluid "in and out", I guess we'd have pretty damned conclusive evidence that they aren't human beings (the fact that they haven't been born being all the evidence we actually need), since human beings really just don't breathe liquid.

Yup, tadpoles, that's what they'd be. And I've just never heard of a human tadpole.

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:(

http://www.merck.com/mrkshared/mmanual/section19/chapter256/256a.jsp

Ventilation and Lung Function

The placenta provides exchange of O2 and CO2 for the fetus. Fetal lungs develop throughout gestation, and fairly well developed alveoli are present by the 25th wk. The fetal lungs continually produce fluid, a transudate from pulmonary capillaries plus some pulmonary surfactant secreted by type II pneumocytes.

Fetal breathing movements occur intermittently, usually about 1/3 of the time during rapid eye movement sleep. Lung fluid moves up through the tracheobronchial tree and contributes to amniotic fluid. Fetal breathing movements appear to be essential for lung development and for the neuromuscular control of breathing, which the newborn needs to survive.

For normal gas exchange to occur at birth, pulmonary alveolar and interstitial fluid must be cleared promptly. There are two mechanisms to accomplish this: (1) During vaginal delivery, the fetal thorax is compressed, expelling some lung fluid. As the thorax is delivered, elastic recoil of the ribs draws some air into the pulmonary tree. The first strong inspiratory efforts further fill the alveoli with air. (2) Fetal epinephrine and norepinephrine levels rise during labor and increase the active absorption of sodium and fluid across the respiratory epithelium via epithelial sodium channels. Neonatal wet lung syndrome (transient tachypnea of the newborn--see Respiratory Disorders in Ch. 260) is probably caused by delay in the active resorption of fetal lung sodium and fluid via epithelial sodium channels.

Because fetal lung alveoli are filled with fluid, surface tension is not an issue in fetal breathing movements. Following the first breath after birth, the alveoli contain air, and because a layer of fluid lines the alveolar surface, air-fluid interfaces then exist. At the first breath, pulmonary surfactant is normally secreted into this layer of fluid; otherwise, excessively high surface tension would cause alveolar collapse (atelectasis) and greatly increase the work of breathing. Pulmonary surfactant (a complex mixture of phospholipids, including phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, neutral lipids, and three surface active proteins) is largely stored in lamellar inclusions in the type II pneumocytes and is released in large amounts with the first breath.

... then fetuses would be tadpoles. As I was saying.

To portray these movements as "breathing", which is, we will recall, what was done, is hardly what I'd call, oh, candid. I note that the source provided (and others I have read) does no such thing.

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I guess medical terminology is only acceptable when it supports your ideology? (e.g. fetus / child)

... I'm just not seeing the quotation.

Are you actually sitting there with your bald face hanging out and, referring to the passage you quoted in your previous post, saying they do call it 'breathing'?

You seem to be doing that, so I'll be gobsmacked. I seldom get to see such audacity.

You might like to note the two words at the end of the passage you quoted; they were:

FIRST BREATH.

And they weren't referring to anything that goes on in utero.

I wish I could say I was disappointed. I actually wish that folks like you would disappoint me sometime, and give an actual candid report of some fact or other. Oh well. I guess medical terminology just doesn't matter when there's an agenda needing shoving.

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"folks like you"

I wish the pro-abortion crowd were in a different party.

I can see why so many otherwise liberal people are driven to vote for republicans, I really can.

Lemme at 'em. I'll get 'em hauled before the International Criminal Court (well, not if they're USAmerican, of course ...) on charges of crimes against humanity, if they're actually compelling women to terminate their pregnancies.

Of course, I don't know of anybody who is doing that, or who is advocating that it be done. Do you? Know of someone advocating that women be compelled to terminate their pregnancies?

Since you seem to be creating a dichotomy between, what would it be, "pro-life"? and "pro-abortion", I assume that's what "pro-abortion" would mean. Given that "pro-life" apparently means "advocating compelling women to continue pregnancies and deliver babies against their will".

Of course, then there's "anti-abortion". People can be opposed to abortion without being anti-choice. There seem to be quite a lot of them.

So even if someone were "pro-abortion" -- advocated abortion? -- s/he could still be anti-choice, I guess. Advocates abortion and opposes women having the ability to exercise the right to what they choose with their own pregnancy. Like I say, never met one, but if you want to make the introductions, I'll be interested.

Of course, you could just explain what the fuck "pro-abortion" is supposed to mean, and specify whom you are calling "pro-abortion" and why. That would avert a lot of confusion, I guess.

I wish the pro-abortion crowd were in a different party.

In any case, you don't have to worry your head about me. Since it appears you haven't noticed, I don't belong to your party. I belong to the New Democratic Party of Canada. A party that supports Canada's abortion laws ... except, oops! there aren't any. Legal Abortion: the Sign of a Civilized Society

I can see why so many otherwise liberal people are driven to vote for republicans, I really can.

Yeah, I've always been with Phil Ochs on that "liberal" stuff. A liberal is a person who can be counted on, in the final analysis, to vote/act in his/her own interests. Pretty much describes the anti-choice crowd to a T, although of course for some of them it isn't just the final analysis when it happens.

Now, what I can never understand is why "so many otherwise liberal people" tolerate fascistic woman-haters in their own party ... or on "liberal" discussion boards ... but there's no accounting for tastes, or for how far some will go in the name of political expediency. Letting people who plainly have complete contempt for both women and their Constitution into the tent doesn't seem to be beyond the pale, unfortunately.

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Do you think that because I'm more pro-life than pro-choice I'm a 'fascistic woman-hater'?

You may think that the right to abortion on demand up until birth is the best thing since sliced bread, but that's just your opinion.

In case you didn't notice, the Constitution was set up to protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority.

Since in this case the majority is most definitely the crowd screaming that children are not children until they breathe, I think you know very well which group it is that needs protection.

That being the case, I really cannot wait for this country to finally put it's foot down for the rights of the unborn. :)

That being the case, I really cannot wait for this country to finally put it's foot down for the rights of the unborn.

And if only we would just stop denying faeries their rights, and denying sunflowers their rights ... talk about downtrodden! I tread on faeries every time I visit my garden, and the squirrels just massacre those sunflowers. Off with their heads! (the squirrels') I say.

You make about as much sense as any anti-choice bot I've ever encountered, and that's a lot of them. I'm eternally not disappointed.

All you have to do now is answer my eternal question, about these z/e/f-al "rights" of yours.

In this brave new world when women have rights and some of their body parts also have rights --

HOW IS IT GONNA WORK?

The first sub-question in the long list goes like this.

Your Constitution says:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Now, obviously this will apply to those z/e/fs of yours -- they'll be "persons", and so they will have exactly the same rights as all other persons. Surely you're with me so far -- there's no such thing as a little bit pregnant, and there's no such thing as kinda a person. And one person's constitutional rights are exactly the same as another constitutional person's rights, by definition itself. Right?

So ... there's gonna have to be, what? a tribunal? to determine when an abortion will be permitted. After all, that z/e/f may not be deprived of life without due process of law. So the z/e/f gets a trial before being offed.

What will satisfy that "due process" requirement? C'mon, you have to know the answer. You're the one making the proposal. What will JUSTIFY killing that teeny little "person"? Self-defence? Look it up. And tell me how a z/e/f can reasonably be believed to be intending to hurt a fly, let alone the woman inside whose body it's "residing", as you guys put it. Necessity? You know of anywhere where "necessity" is a defence to homicide?

Ah yes, homicide it will be and will have to be. A person has a right to life, and killing that person is homicide. Definitionally, again.

But back to our sheep: necessity. Even if there were "necessity", exactly how would that necessity be proved? And the big question -- do you know of any other situation in which the killing of one human being by another is ever pre-authorized by anyone, tribunal or otherwise?

Actually, do you know of any other situation in which one person's continued life can reasonably be expected to be dependent on another person's death? I mean ... maybe that old mountain-climbing thing, where one person has to cut the rope and let the other person get smashed to smithereens ... but that isn't actually an instance of killing someone, really.

So, me, I can't think of any way, any way at all, that a woman could be given prior authorization to "kill" her z/e/f. There's just no due process in the world that would make that possible.

And then, of course, at least for some of us, there's the woman. She has that same right to life and not to be deprived thereof without due process. If she is denied an abortion and dies -- and women do die in pregnancy or childbirth -- where was her due process?

Forced to do something that resulted in her death, even though she has done nothing wrong ... you know of anybody else we treat that way? (Outside of military conscription, the single only exception our societies still make, and for which justification is believed to be found in the need to protect the society and its other members from a horrible fate.)

And of course forced to relinquish her liberty, again, even though she has done nothing wrong. Normally, we at least require that someone be convicted of a crime or be stark raving mad before we take away their freedom to choose how to live their lives. Pregnant women must be horrible people, or perhaps crazy people, if we're considering treating them this way, eh?

So c'mon. Z/e/fs have rights; women have rights. Brave new world.

HOW IS IT GONNA WORK?

You're the one proposing it, so the thing that you do, in civil and democratic discourse, is explain your proposal.

Of course, fascistic discourse relies, rather, on appeals to emotion and prejudice, and on obfuscation of its true aim. I'm absolutely certain that this is not what *you* would be doing.

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Certainly sometime before birth, because my kid was born via Caesarian Section, and looking at his face in the ultrasound one minute before he was born, and looking at his face as he was being born, I can guarantee everyone from personal experience that it was the same baby one minute before the doctor cut, as he was one minute after the doctor cut. Nothing magical happened. It was the same kid.

that the child is alive as a distinct and separate entity as soon as the child takes a single breath of air. At that point, it's clear that it's a separate person, and no longer just tissue.

of going in to get my son, he was not a person while the doctor was cutting through skin, but he was a person when the doctor lifted him up? That doesn't make much sense to me. Standing there watching the process, it was pretty obvious that he was the same person one minute before he drew his first breath as one minute after.

I guess anyone can have any opinion on anything they want to though.

Saying that as a child still ensconced in it's mothers womb is not a child simply because it is separated from the outside environment is a tactic used to make the process of abortion seem less horrid than it is.

a patriarchial society that uses the state to further its control on womens lives by treating them as incubaters.

Sorry, but children have rights too, even those who are still called 'fetuses' by those who would insist their rights matter more.

We've ascertainted that tumors are indeed living, growing masses of tissue. Do they have rights too?

or there'll be tumor troopers popping up everywhere and looking in places I don't even want to think about! :wow:

sorry!!!

Do you really see no difference between a cancerous tumor and a fetus in the process of developing into a baby?

I have never been -- and never will be -- a father.

But you have said that you have a wife who is pregnant.

You'll excuse me, I hope, for saying this, but it is just inconceivable to me that a person who has actually fathered a child could ever suggest that there is no difference between a cancerous tumor and an unborn child.

the fetus has the POTENTIAL of becoming a separate person. A tumor doesn't. But right now, the fetus my wife is carrying is acting as a parasite. It's causing a great many physiological changes in my wife, just as a growing tumor would. It's literally feeding off of her system. If she were to die today, it would die with her, since it is a part of her. Both a tumor and the fetus has the potential to kill her. It might or might not. Some tumors are benign, and some are malignant. Some fetuses cause the deaths of their mothers and some do not.

You view a fetus as an unborn child. I don't. It's a growth. A lump of tissue. (In fact, that's our "pet" name for it...."Lump"...) It hasn't been born yet. Once it's born and takes a breath of air, I'll see it as a child. But not before. It's got potential, but it ain't there yet. My wife and I like to cook together. When we make a cake, it's not a cake when we grind the ingredients or mix the batter or put it in the oven. It's a cake once it has finished cooking and been removed from the oven, depanned, cooled, and iced. Our child-to-be didn't become a child when we had sex, or when the egg and sperm met, or when it attached to the uterine wall, or while it was growing. It'll be a child when it's born and takes it's first breath.

Let's say some one this evening were to break into your house and attack your wife. (PLEASE NOTE --- I DO NOT WISH THIS TO HAPPEN!!!!!)

And let's say that that the attacker attacks your wife in such a way that "Lump" dies -- or whatever it is that Lumps do when they stop having potential to become babies.

And let's also say (AGAIN, I DO NOT WISH THIS TO HAPPEN) that the attacker also knocks out one of your wife's teeth.

Do you think the punishment for the attacker should be the same for his actions which resulted in the loss of potential for Lump as for the actions which resulted in the loss of your wife's tooth?

:puke: :puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

But then, I am not the one saying that an unborn child is no different from a tooth or another body part.

Or as a parasite -- the same thing, really, as a tapeworm.

Not a plausible scenario. Why? Because either my wife or myself would bust a cap in the intruder so fast it would make their head spin. You wouldn't want to attack my wife on the street, since she carries a permitted and loaded Colt .45 Combat Cammander, is exceptionally skilled with it, and has as much compunction about using it if she's in danger of greivous bodily harm as I would have paring a fingernail. She's been attacked and seriously injured before, and subscribes to the "never again" school of victimology thought.

As for the "meat" of your statement, causing a miscarriage is far greater harm TO THE MOTHER than knocking out a tooth. The law recognizes this. As such, there are far greater penalties to the offender under the law for causing a miscarriage than for knocking out a tooth. The greater punishment comes NOT because of the harm to the fetus, but because of the harm to the MOTHER.

I would NOT support a murder charge against the person who caused the miscarriage. The aggrevated assault charge would be enough, presupposing that the attacker lived through it.

I am really intrigued by your post.

I know that you and your wife are married.

But there are cases in which a man and woman have sex, and then the man leaves the woman on her own.

Now, since it is your view that the fetus is part of the woman's body, and does not become a baked "cake" until it is born -- removed from the oven (interesting that you describe a woman's uterus that way), depanned, cooled, and iced (I guess that means that the baby has to do something more than ismply draw its first breath), does the father have any responsibility to support the woman financially during the time she is pregnant, or does his obligation to provide "child" supprt occur only after there is actually a child?

Child support is there to provide for the child, not the mother.

I've never, EVER heard of a court ordering child support for a fetus. Have you?

Also, I've NEVER described a woman's uterus as an oven. I was arguing by analogy. A baby isn't a cake. A woman isn't an oven. And sperm isn't generally recognized as a spice.

My question was not really concerned so much with any legal obligation of the sperm-donor, but rather with the sperm-donor "doing the right thing".

Now, if I understand your position correctly, it would be perfectly OK with you if some sperm-donor simply refused to provide any emotional or financial support to the ovum-donor during the time she is pregnant. After all, according to you, it's her fetus, and I guess that means its hers alone. So, it would make perfect sense for some sperm-donor to walk away and say, during the pregnancy, "Hey, babe, it's your fetus. I don't pay to have your teeth worked on, and I ain't gonna pay for any medical needs you might have associated with your fetus".

Myself, I would think such a man an absolute cad. I would think that he might have some understanding that it really is their -- and nor just her -- fetus. But, I guess that's just me.

Of course, one of the changes the fetus apparently undergoes when it is born is that it stops being her fetus and starts being their child.

He'd have exercised HIS reproductive freedom while he could and worn a fucking condom or had a vasectomy...

What a wonderful dodge!

I think you must be assuming that the sperm donor I am hypothesizing does not want to have any children.

In my example, I think the seprm-donor does want kids.

And, just to be clear about that, let's say that the sperm donor will provide all the support -- both emotional and financial -- to both the child and the mother, once there is a child and a mother. Which, as I understand it is, according to you, when there is a live birth.

The question I have is this -- should the sperm donor feel obligated, before there actually is an actual child, to provide any financial support or even emotional support to the woman?

By the way, a slightly different subject. Shouldn't you change your sig line?

Would it not be more consistent with the beliefs you have espoused on this thread to say:

"OMFG!!! On Monday, November 10, 2003, I found out that Mrs. DoNotRefill is "with fetus", her first!!!!!

???

what my fucking sig line is? Are you the sig line police now?

That's pretty pathetic....

to ever in a million years desire to establish myself as the "sig line police".

I do find it most curious though that you refer to your wife as being "with child".

Help me to understand (in all seriousness) why you would want to say such a thing.

Why, for instance, would you not want to say "with fetus -- her first", or "with lump of cells - her first"?

A child? I think so, but I thought you didn't.

THAT is why I am confused here.

You are, as far as I am concerned, perfectly free to use whatever sig line you want.

that I used quotation marks. Ever hear of a term of art? It sounds a lot better than "Hey, I knocked up my wife..." or "Hey, my sperm is motile!" or "Hey! My wife's gaining weight due to gestation, can't sleep at night, can't get comfortable, and is going through random hormone-induced mood swings and bizarre food cravings, and I have to scoop the kitty litter!!!"

use whatever "term of art" you want. Hell, you can even put it in quotation marks if it is your pleasure to do so.

I do agree that your sig line sounds better than any of the ones in the post you just made.

Still, although it sounds strange to me, I would think that someone as fervently pro-choice as yourself would find something that refered to a "child" -- especially "our" child -- as being terribly offensive.

I have had people on DU tell me that I offend them when I refer to a fetus as an unborn child. So you can understand, I'm sure, my complete surprize when I see you refer to your wife as being "with child". My understanding of the fervfently pro-choice mindset is that any reference to the contents of a woman's womb as a child is terribly offensive.

In fact, I seem to recall someone here saying that he and his wife, because they for some reason can't bring themselves to call "it" a child, like to give it a little "pet name" -- Lump.

And that part about "our" first really throws me for a loop. It's your wife's fetus, isn't it? Is a part of her body, right? Do you call the teeth in your wife's mouth "our" teeth? I thought you considered the fetus to be just as much a part of your wife's body as her teeth? If that is so, then why would you ever want to call her fetus "our" first?

I can understand you saying, once the fetus takes its first breath, that there then exists "our" first child. But before little Lump draws its first breath, I thought you were talking about your wife's first fetus.

I was just confused (and still am).

I hope you can see why.

that doesn't mean I can't call it our house, does it? When conversing with friends, I might even say something like "why don't y'all come over to my house", mightn't I? Even though the house technically belongs to her as sole and separate owner, I'd still be correct in my terminology.

When it is born, it's going to be my child, just as it's her child, right?

Your "confusion" is either deliberate (in that you're claiming to not understand an easily understandable figure of speech) or the sign of an unusually closed mind. Personally, I think it's the former, but I might be wrong.

Has your wife felt the baby kick? Hiccup? Anything?

I guess y'all must know some really active 'lumps', to be able to consider a living being who lets you know when they're agitated as a 'lump'.

of course, I've seen this when she passed gas, too. Does this mean flatulence is alive and has rights?

You act as if your awareness that it's a PERSON in there kicking and hiccuping is in doubt. I trust you're aware that her gas bubbles are not a person.

:eyes:

any more than a cancerous growth is a person. There's more to being a person than movement.

I don't buy your religiously dogmatic view. And I'd appreciate it if you kept your religious views OUT of the law. Ever hear of separation of church and state?

It's realistic. People 'kick', cancerous growths do not.

Surely there is more to being a person than kicking your mom's tummy from the inside. Unborn animals do it. You don't think there's an animal in your wife's belly, do you?

This has nothing to do with the church, so I don't know why you bring that up. ?

a vegetable? A mineral? Is there some other option?

Are all mammals animals? I'd say yes. Are all people mammals? Well, in theory, at least, they are.

And an animal fetus isn't an animal. If your cat is pregnant, do you say to your friends "Here's my cat and kittens" before she has them? Nope, you say "here's my cat", or "Here's my pregnant cat" if you're being terminologically anal.

I bring religion up because your position is BASED upon religion. A religion, I might add, that I do not share, and don't appreciate having foisted on me and my wife through laws based upon religious dogma.

"If your cat is pregnant, do you say to your friends "Here's my cat and kittens" before she has them? Nope, you say "here's my cat", or "Here's my pregnant cat" if you're being terminologically anal."

Let's see here --- if someone has a cat, it is just not appropriate (because it might reek of some religious dogma) to say "Here's my cat and kittens".

But it is perfectly OK (and free of religious dogma) to say "I found out that my wife is "with child" -- our first.

Do cats even HAVE religions other than "follow the sunbeam" and "torture smaller animals for fun"?

Please explain the religious dogma associated with the term "with child". It's a descriptive term, the same as "pregnant" or "gravid". It's not dogmatic.

In the post I was responding to, you first bring up that it would be somehow not quite correct to say "Here is my cat with kittens": "And an animal fetus isn't an animal. If your cat is pregnant, do you say to your friends "Here's my cat and kittens" before she has them? Nope, you say "here's my cat""

I'm not sure why you so dogmatically state that it would not be correct to say "Here's my cat and kittens". Perhaps it would be ok to say "Here is my cat who is "with kittens" -- our first litter? Or this -- "My cat is pregnant with her first litter of kittens"? Seems as though there have been posts to this very thread that have used analogous language when referring to human pregnancies.

Your continued use of "with child" is most dogmatic. It is not at all descriptive, because it does not, by your own terms, accurately describe what is within a woman's uterus. If it is incorrect to say "Here's my cat kittens", then how is it any more correct to say, "Here is my wife with child"?

If you assert that it is dogmatism to say that a fetus is a child before it is born, then I assert right back to you that it is dogmatic to say that a pregnant woman is "with child".

In fact, as you know, if you accept my truly non-dogmatic definiton of what a person is, then you will quite clearly understand why it is so dogmatic to say that a pregnant woman is "with child". At most, she has a fetus that, after birth is still just a "potential child". It does not become an "actual" person (and therefore an "actual" child) until it acquires the necssary verbal communication skills I have described.

merited no response whatsoever.

That kind of comment shows you that you are not engaged in a discussion, but just a series of contradictions, so what's the point?

I really fail to see, redqueen, how my observation (which was not really an argument, contradicted anything I had ever said on this thread.

The one comparing a developing baby to a cancerous tumor. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

That a life in potential has superior rights to the life in being that is carrying it.

How is this not treating women as incubators?

Nice spin though.

on your part.

If you're not saying that the rights of the fetus should trump the rights of mother to decide whether or not to carry it to term, what exactly are you saying?

*before birth*, IMO, the fetus has it's own rights, which should not be submlimated based on a whim. Medical necessity, yes. Inconvenience, no.

Soon enough, medical science will have to step in and inform us when the developing fetus acheives some milestone at which it qualifies as a separate person.

but have the potential to develop (barring a host of possible complications) into children.

or, more specifically, infants deserving of their own rights and protections. IMO (and in the opinion of many others), that happens before the due date, way before the baby is born.

when he took his first breath.

When a doctor removes an internal organ or a tumor from a patient, does leaving the body make it into a person? Of course not. It's not breathing. If a doctor performs a c-section on a stillborn fetus, is it alive when it leaves it's mother's body? Of course not. In order for a baby to be considered a live birth, it has to take one breath. The respiration process MUST start. If it does so on it's own, it's alive. If it does so with assistance of a machine, it's alive. If it doesn't start respirating, it's not alive.

Respiration is the clearest indicator that I (and the courts) have found to tell if something is alive or not.

I know this may sound crazy to some -- probably to most -- but whty don't we draw the line a personhood at the point at which a mass of tissues develops its first gray hair? Before that point, it is just a mass of tissue -- after that point, it is a person.

Why is that line any better or any worse than the line you have suggested, DoNotRefill?

but respiration is the one process which all living mammals must engage in to be alive.

What possible relevance would hair color have in the debate? You can be bald and alive. You can't not breathe and be alive.

"You can't not breathe and be alive."

Is that so? That is truly news to me. Here I thought that a fetus was a growing, living thing. And I thought that abortions were thought to be necessary to stop the growth of this living thing.

But I guess that since a fetus does not breathe, it is not alive. And if it is not alive, then it is like a stone -- it doesn't grow or develop.

Anyway, I thought we were discussion personhood -- and not being alive.

You had said, I think, that you drew the line at personhood -- which, I think, is different from being alive -- at the point at which a fetus draws its first breath -- of air.

If that is a definition of personhood that works for you, then fine. But why is my suggested definition of personhood any less arbitrary than the one you have selected?

between growing and being alive as a separate entity.

A tumor is a growing, living mass of tissue. It has no rights.
A fetus is a growing, living mass of tissue. It has no rights.
A baby that is breathing is a growing, living mass of tissue. It is a person in and of itself, and has rights.
A stillborn baby that's outside the womb is not a growing, living mass of tissue, and has no rights.


Your suggested definition has no basis on medical necessity. Hair isn't independently alive. A fetus that isn't respirating is not independently alive. Once a baby is breathing, it's independently alive.

I don't know if you have any medical training. I have a decent amount of practical training as a first responder. We were taught when dealing with people that our three priorities for priorities were: "Keep 'em breathing, stop the bleeding, treat for shock." You'll notice breathing comes first. Why? Because if the patient isn't breathing, the bleeding will stop and there's no point in treating for shock since they're dead.

Every so often, you'll hear of a case where a woman, without medical attention, carries a fetus, gives birth, and the child doesn't survive. The standard in court for deciding if the child was born alive or not is for the forensic pathologist to examine the lungs, and see if the baby had started breathing or if it's lungs were still filled with amniotic fluid. If there was air in the lungs, it's ruled to have been a live birth, but if there isn't air in the lungs, the baby is legally viewed as being stillborn.

I am getting a bit confused here.

At one point, I understood you to say that "personhood" happens when a mass of tissue draws its first breath of air.

Then, after I suggested that a definition of "personhood" could be the point at which a mass of tissue grew its first gray hair, I understood you to say that one could be alive and not have gray hair -- and that it was necessary to breathe in order to be alive.

But now you are saying (I think) that it is possible to be alive and not breathing, but that in order to be a person, a mass of living tissue has to have rights.

If I understand you correctly, I think you have just constructed a tautology -- a person is a person if s/he has rights, and rights are given only to persons.

We do not give rights to tumors because they are not persons. And, according to you, we do not give rights to fetuses because ------- (I think the answer you wold suggest is that because they are not persons). And the reason fetuses are not persons, according to you, is because ------ (I think you would say because fetuses have no rights).

See why I am confused here?

fine.

Tissue can be alive. A tumor can be alive. It's cells are living. But it's not a person. It's not an independent entity, living on it's own. It requires a specific host to survive. It is not respirating on it's own.

Just like a tumor, a fetus can be alive. It's cells can be functioning. For an example of this, take a situation where a woman is carrying two fetuses, one which was seriously defective to the point that it couldn't breathe, and one which wasn't. The non-defective fetus is "alive", it's cells are functioning. It's still not a person. The defective fetus isn't alive, it's cells are not operating. It's also not a person.

Once a baby is born, it may or may not still be alive. This depends on if it's respirating or not. The non-defective fetus in the above scenario may or may not respire. It's status as being a person depends on this fact. The defective fetus, when delivered, is still incapable of respirating, and is not a person, since it cannot conduct the standard business of living, which requires respiration.

Who said anything about war?

I just want to know what we are discussing, that's all.

You say, "The non-defective fetus in the above scenario may or may not respire. It's status as being a person depends on this fact."

I understand, I think, why respiration may be necessary in order for there to be a person. Although I hasten to add that brain activity -- which can occur, I think, before respiration begins, could be used to define personhood just as easily, in my view as respiration.

But why is it, that even if I accept your notion of respiration as being necesaary for personhood, could I not then say "respiration plus".

For instance, if you suggest that respiration is necessary for there to be a person, why could I not say, "Fine. But respiration is merely the first of many conditions that must be met before this respirating mass of tissue becomes a person. I think this mass of tissue must learn how to speak the English language fluently before I will consider it to be anything other than a mere Lump"?

A person can be brain dead while still respirating, right? Does that mean that they're any less of a person in the eyes of the law? And if it does, then why is a court order, coupled with a guardian ad litem, required for a decision to take a person off life support if they're brain dead? Why can't the doctor make that decision by themselves? Simply put, because in the eyes of the law, respiration=life. NOT brain activity.

In Virginia, there is not such thing as "brain death". There is dimply death -- the absence of brain activity. In Virginia, a person can become an organ donor when there is no brain activity. Respiration is continued, via artificial means, after death has occurred, in order to maintain the organs in a state that allows them to be transplanted. But respiration does happen after death. I've seen it.

But you are still talking about life and not about personhood. Why is my hypothetical definition of personhood -- the ability to speakl the English language fluently -- any more or any less valid than what you states as your definition for personhood -- the ability to respire on one's own.

You seem to want to grant personhood status to masses of cells based only upon their ability to respire independently from their mother. WHy stop there, though? Why not have more conditions that must be met? What prevents me from saying that someone who is able to breathe independently from her/his mother is only a "potential" human being?

maybe you should read it. From §18.2-71.1 (c): ""human infant who has been born alive" means a product of human conception that has been completely or substantially expelled or extracted from its mother, regardless of the duration of pregnancy, which after such expulsion or extraction breathes..."

Gee, looks like Virginia recognizes the "one breath" doctrine....


How can a person be declared dead in Virginia? From §54.1-2972: "A. A person shall be medically and legally dead if: (brevity snip) there is the absence of spontaneous respiratory and spontaneous cardiac functions and, because of the disease or condition which directly or indirectly caused these functions to cease, or because of the passage of time since these functions ceased, attempts at resuscitation would not, in the opinion of such physician, be successful in restoring spontaneous life-sustaining functions, and, in such event, death shall be deemed to have occurred at the time these functions ceased; or..." (section 2 talks about brain death)

Gee, in your post above, you NEGLECTED to mention that if a person stops breathing and their heart stops, they're just as dead legally and medically under the Code of Virginia as if their brain function stops. That kind of shoots a big-assed hole in your statement that "In Virginia, there is not such thing as "brain death". There is dimply (sic) death -- the absence of brain activity." It seems clear from the code that a person who is on life support CAN still be dead, IF they are no longer capable of spontaneously breathing, even IF their brain is fully functional.

but that's OK. I'm not surprised. :sigh:

I've met people like you in Virginia before, while I was working as a clinic escort at a clinic in Richmond, the one on Boulevard. BEFORE it was firebombed.

What do you mean?

People who respond as I did?

Hey, you might want to check some of the other posts of this thread.

If you can believe it, there is actually a poster who gave ME the same response I gave to you!

I have only driven through Richmond -- I have never stopped there. It looks, from I-95, to be a quite lovely city.

I think I hear you suggesting that I am someone who woujld blockade an abortion clinic.

You are quite wrong, and have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about.

"people who adopt the same strange religiously dogmatic outlook as you on this issue"?

I noticed you didn't address the relevant law I quoted, which is at odds with the position you stated.

Are you a truck driver? I ask this because you said you'd driven through Richmond, and I often see those "It's a child, not a choice" stickers on trucks there...

Where have I ever brought up any religion on this thread?

Show me, please.

Where have I even hinted at a relgious-based notion, let alone espoused a "strange religiously dogmatic outlook"?

Where? Cite even one thing I have said.

And, no, I am not a truck driver. I think the job truckers do is awfully important, and I would never demean a trucker.

But, no, I am not one of "those people".

I drive a car.

On occasion, I have driven from my home in the Washington, DC suburb of Arlington, Va, to points in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

When I do that, I-95 takes me through Richmond.

I have driven through Richmond, but never stopped there.

And I do not have any bumper stickers on my car.

I do hope this clears up any pre-conceived notions you have about me.

I do also hope that you notice that I have not made any comments about you referring to your religion or general philosophy on life, or to your occupation, or to how you choose to volunteer your time.

I would appreciate the same respect from you, if you don't mind too terribly.

I spent 3 years there for Law School. I escaped upon graduation. Moving day was one of the happiest of my life.

Are you claiming that your position is NOT based upon religion? If that's not the case, what IS it based on? Because it's certainly not science or the law...

You say you're not espousing religiously dogmatic ideas. Fine. Prove it. When does a fetus become a person? Please be specific.

Oh, and BTW, if you want me to respect you, you might not want to throw out the "what if somebody attacked and maimed your wife" hypotheticals, even with the disclaimers. Some people might take those as a thinly-veiled threat.

exactly what "my position" is.

I'm not sure I know what your position is, because you seem to contradict yourself (a fetus is just s fetus unless it is in your wife's womb, in which case it is a child....and a fetus is a soley a part of a woman's body, unless it happens to be a part of your wife's body, in which case it becomes OK to call it "our" child.)

So, if you'd be so kind to articulate exactly what you think "my position is, I'll let you know if you have it correct.

Because I just bet you have it wrong.

And if you truly think I threatend you or your wife, there is always that alert button.

BTW, Arlington is not a "town". It is an unincorporated county -- one of the few in the entire State of Virginia with a gay county supervisor and one of the few with a Democratic majority. I can't imagine why you were so eager to leave here. Was it the politics?

because the traffic sucked, the drivers were rude, parking was impossible, and there seemed to be an inordinate number of assholes there.

I don't know exactly WHAT your position is. In some posts, you seem sure that a fetus is a person. In others, you seem sure that anybody who doesn't speak english fluently isn't a person. That's why I asked for a clarification.

As for my position, I've been clear on it, figure of speech in my sig line notwithstanding. If it's not respiring, it's not alive as a separate individual. My wife does NOT have a child in her womb, she has a fetus in it. Once (and if) we have a child, I'll let everybody know in the Lounge.

"You say you're not espousing religiously dogmatic ideas. Fine. Prove it. When does a fetus become a person? Please be specific."

It becomes a person when it become able to read, write, and speak the English language fluently. BEfore that point, a fetus is completely unable to articulate its own ideas in a fashion that can make any sense to an adult. And being able to fashion and state ideas in a manner that make sense to other adults is what makes a person a person.

Now what were you saying about religious dogma?

Let me ask you the same question: "When does a fetus become a person? Prove it.

ANd also please prove, if you can, why your defintion of when a fetus becomes a person is any more or any less valid than mine.

that a fetus becomes a person when once the fetus is born and takes it's first breath. If it's born but doesn't begin to respirate, it's not a person. It's no longer a dependent organism, it's actually conducting the biological "business of life" on it's own.

I can't believe you truly use your definition of a person. Under your definition, a deaf-mute 35 year old isn't a person. Same deal with the majority of people on the planet who don't speak english.

I was using my definition of persons within English-speaking countries.

My broader definition of when a fetus becomes a person is when it becomes able to read, write, and speak fluently in the language of the land, region, or territory in which it happens to live most of the time. In order to be a person, a fetus must be able to form ideas and be able to articulate them clearly -- in speech, writing, and speaking -- in a manner that makes sense to adults who have similar skills.

And yes, you are quite right, this definition does exclude deaf-mute 35 year olds.

I don't have the religiously-dictated dogma that so many others do -- the one that says that somehow people without verbal skills should be considered people.

This "business of life" stuff that you talk about that a fetus who has just been born is able to do -- does that include being able to feed itself? clothe itself? find and maintain shelter for itself? Thosee, to me, with my non-religious-dogmatic view of the world, are all quite necessary to the "business of life" -- in fact, I would argue that they are part and parcel of the "business of life"

I would almost guess that you yourself have some sort of religious-based attachment to pretty little fetuses that have just been born.

Those pretty little babiesmay conduct the biological "business of life" (whatever the hell that is), but they are a long way from being able to do any sort of the things I (as a non-religious, non-dogmatic person) happen to believe constitute the actual business of life.

"I don't have the religiously-dictated dogma that so many others do -- the one that says that somehow people without verbal skills should be considered people."

Do you have ANY scientific or legal basis for this? I thought not.

Once my wife gives birth, my feelings for the child will not be based upon religious dogma, but rather upon basic paternal instinct, which is driven by evolutionary forces. I'm pretty sure that mothers and fathers generally cared for their infants before the advent of religion. If they hadn't, the species wouldn't have survived long enough to create religions.

Biological "business of life" means things like breathing, eating, and eliminating waste products on it's own. It doesn't mean being employed or speaking coherently.

The more you post, the less seriously I take you.

"Biological "business of life" means things like breathing, eating, and eliminating waste products on it's own. It doesn't mean being employed or speaking coherently"

And just what does this "biological business of life" have to do with personhood?

If you start out defining a person as one who is able to conduct the "biological business of life", then of course you say the "biological business of life" is what constitutes a person.

But that proves absolutely nothing.

All you have done is to describe a tautology.

You say that anyone who says that personhood begins before birth is somehow driven by religious dogma. But that is because YOU define personhood the way you do.

But if I define personhood to be at some point beyond birth -- requiring more than the mere act of simple respiration -- then I can certainly place you in the same position that you place those who claim that personhood begins before birth, can't I?

And so I do just that.

Your insistence that all that is necessary for personhood is simple respiration -- and the most simple acts -- breathing, eating, and eliminating waste products on it's own -- can only reflect a dogmatic religious viewpoint which teaches somehow that persons are what I call underdeveloped fetuses -- "potential persons" who have left the uterus, but which still must meet additional conditions in order to truly become full, complete, and "actual" persons.

'Bye.

It is indeed nonsense, isn't it, when one person accuses another of being a religiously dogmatic person simply because they have different views concerning when a fetus becomes a person.

And that, DoNotRefill, is exactly what you did to me.

I hope you understand how such an unfounded accusation does absolutely nothing to further discussion. And I also hope you now understand how it feels to have such an accusation hurled at you.

Nonsense. Indeed it is.

throughout this entire thread, you've repeatedly changed your definitions while offering no viable legal or scientific reasons behind ANY of your positions.

My position is based both on the law and on science. Law in that the law generally recognizes respiration as a sign of life, and science in that without respiration of some form there is no life. Your position isn't. Since your position is not based on neither law nor science, what other reason other than religion can you give for it?

I just happened to see this sentence in this post of yours:

"She's pregnant with our first child."

What an interesting way for you to express your wife's condition.

You have argued quite strenuously elsewhere on this thread that a fetus is just a fetus -- a lump, I believe is the term you used elsewhere. You have argued that a fetus is most definitely not a child.

And I think you have likewise argued elsewhere on this thread that a fetus is part of a woman's body -- like her teeth, or any other body part. That being the case, what in the world gives you the right to call that fetus "our" child, instead of "her" fetus.

I would have no problem saying that your wife is pregnant with your first child, but I am rather surprized, given how you have characterized the status of what I call unborn children elsewhere on this thread, to hear you make such an anti-female, misogynistic, fetus-loving, zealously anti-choice statement.

I would agree that much of what I wrote is, in my own personal view, sheer and utter bullshit.

You, however, appear to agree with everything I wrote, unless I completely misunderstand you.

For instance, I wrote, "The state never has any interest in protecting fetal life."

I think you agree with this, don't you?

And I also wrote, "Fetuses, after all, are merely inconsequential, vulnerable, powerless and not really even human."

You do agree with this bullshit statement of mine also, don't you?

And I said, "Why should they (fetuses, that is) ever be allowed any consideration of protection from the far more powerful woman in whose body they parasitically live? They (the fetuses, that is) are nothing. They have no power."

I think this bullshit statement I wrote is something you agree to as well. Am I correct?

Finally, I said, "And, of course, the state never has any reason to protect the weak, defenseless, and powerless against the strong and the mighty."

Here it is possible that you may disagree with what I wrote. But I guess that your agreement would be conditional. Conditional upon agreeing that a fetus -- an unborn child -- is no different, really, from tumors, fatty tissue, hair, and dermal tissue.

If you believe that, then I think you also would believe that having an abortion is not much different from having a haircut or using a good skin scrub.

I'm awfully glad you mentioned that women are actual human beings. We do need to be careful about how we treat actual human beings. There are those of us who actually believe that actual fetuses are more than mere tissue, with no more dignity than a folicle of hair or a cancer tumor.

but that's OK. I'm not surprised. :sigh:

Well put! (to DoNotRefill)

matter for the state. As far as I am concerned, unless you are a woman you don't have any right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body.

I am pretty sick of certain posters, who will never, ever be in a position to have to decide whether to have an abortion, who try to turn this debate into a black and white morality issue.

"I am pretty sick of certain posters, who will never, ever be in a position to have to decide whether to have an abortion, who try to turn this debate into a black and white morality issue."

Could you possibly mean, smirkymonkey, posters -- such as this poster, who happens to be a male -- who post things like this:

"Forcing a woman to serve as an incubator against her will is so morally repugnant that words alone cannot convey my disgust at the idea."

Don't you just hate it when someone tries to force his view of morality on you?

between saying "do what you think is best" (which is my position) and saying "no, you can't, I know what's best for you" (which is your position).

If a woman wants an abortion or not, I say leave it to her, it's her decision, her moral choice to make. You're saying "I want to inflict my morality on you".

Don't like abortion? Fine. Don't have one. It's YOUR choice as an individual, since it's YOUR body. Oh, wait.....

anything to do with me. He personally finds what he mentioned morally repugnant. He does not say that he thinks his personal view should be codified into law. That forces nothing on anybody.

On the other hand, there are those who do think their PERSONAL moral views should and can be used to determine my rights as a living, breathing individual, and THAT is what I have a problem with.

"On the other hand, there are those who do think their PERSONAL moral views should and can be used to determine my rights as a living, breathing individual, and THAT is what I have a problem with."

And I am one of those awful people. Please help me overcome my tendency to use my own moral views to determine other peoples' rights as living, breathing individuals.

Let me give you an example.

My own personal morality, such as it is, instructs me that it is wrong for a father to beat his young children. I can't really explain why -- I just think it is wrong for a father to do that.

And yet, the father is a living, breathing individual.

So you see the problem I face here, don't you?

I could just walk away and say that I have no right to use my own personal moral beliefs to determine the rights of fathers -- as living, breathing individuals -- or to restrict their rights to abuse their owwn children. If I were to suggest such a restriction, I am sure that there would be some who would suggest that my desire to control fathers' parental rights flows from some deep anger and hatred towards men.

But somehow I just can't walk away.

Can you give me any pointers on how to stop desiring to impose my own personal morality upon the fathers of this land?

but the post would rightly be pulled by the moderators.

:evilgrin:

send me a private message.

Straw man. This discussion is hopeless.

care to explain your statement?

I'd really love to know why you thinkn my argument makes no sense.

view you have there smirky.

Many women died and were mutilated before Roe vs. Wade. Our country should never take that back and if they do, it's time for women to take up weapons and rebel. I'm not kidding either.

rather than by a ruling of the Supreme Court, that would be grounds for revolution.

I guess I don't get that.

My point was that before Roe vs Wade, woman had no rights regarding abortion. Reversing Roe vs. Wade leaves us with nothing. If women can't control what happens to their bodies, yes it's grounds for revolution. I personally would love to see airtight legislation about this, but until that happens, we have Roe vs. Wade.

you'd have state laws on abortion. You really think the California State legislature would outlaw abortion? How about New York? I would bet not more than 2-3 states would outlaw it, if that many, and the Republican legislators would run for the hills when voting day came.

I don't think those laws were ever updated although I don't have time to check this out right now. Maybe somebody else has the information at their fingertips.

My real point is that before we dismiss Roe vs. Wade, we'd better be sure there is legislation in place to supercede it.

Leaving it to the courts means it could be overturned at any time... "Privacy" .. a court invented issue as it is not stated in the constitution anywhere.. has left the sitution very tenuous. Privacy is ONE judge away from going away- gone. This should be handled by constitutional convention and settled once and for all. Other wise.. we go on wondering if IT IS actually a right.. or BELIEVING it is actually a right.. when reality is.. the SCOTUS could overturn it tomorrow.. and as mentioned above .. ROEVWADE is not absolute.

The best you can hope for is that A) GOP doesnt get to put a judge in B) a prochoice judge doesnt switch his/her position once on the court... as happens with judges once they get their lifetime appointment..

If you think Roe V Wade settled the matter forever... you could have a rude awaking some day.

For this reason.. I vote no on your poll.. not because I'm not pro choice.. but because I believe leaving rights up to a split court is not good enough for me.

I also get aggravated with people who talk about Roe V Wade and never even read it.

Good well thought out poll.

In yesterday's Minneapolis StarTribune:

---------------------------------------------

S.D. Senate rejects abortion ban

PIERRE, S.D. -- By a single vote, the South Dakota Senate today killed a bill that would have banned almost all abortions in the state.

The bill, which almost certainly would have been challenged in court as unconstitutional, had passed both the House and Senate earlier, but Gov. Mike Rounds issued a "form veto," asking that some of the bill's language be clarified.

The Senate, which had passed the original bill on an 18-15 vote, rejected the revised measure today by 18-17.

The bill would have prohibited abortions except to save the life of the mother or in cases posing grave risk to the health of the mother. Pregnancies resulting from rape or incest were not excepted.

Earlier today, the House easily approved Rounds' proposed changes, which were designed to keep current state abortion restrictions in place if the new law was challenged in court, as expected. That vote was 54-16.

Rep. Matt McCaulley, a Sioux Falls Republican who wrote the bill with help from the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., had hoped the strict law might reach the U.S. Supreme Court and be used to overturn the court's historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Some legislators with long records of opposing abortion lined up against the bill, however, fearing that a court challenge could backfire and further entrench the Roe decision.

Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota/South Dakota, applauded the Senate vote and said she hopes it "signals a willingness by South Dakota's elected officials to support and promote policies that are proven effective in preventing unintended pregnancies and making abortion rare."

Link: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4665494.html

I have a lot of problems with it as a judicial decision.

before Roe v Wade. It was the absolutely BEST thing to happen in this country since abolution. Those questioning it obviously weren't involved BEFORE it.

To all those who disagree please find a better solution than stating that it's the left's answer to birth control. My answer to that is to adopt the result of your right wing and anti women stance.

Laws written by lawmakers, the way it's supposed to be. Laws aren't supposed to be written by judges.

that women have control over the destiny of their own bodies?

You bet!
:thumbsup:

Abortion has been around as long as childbirth. Coathangers I understand was the choice of some. You cannot legislate morality if that is what they want to call it and the govt. should not fund faith. Therefore, the rich or at least those who can afford to will always undo a pregnancy and the poor and the incest or rape victims will be left along to struggle and maybe die.
Roe V Wade was signed into law under a republican in 1973 by Nixon and nobody ever brings that up. How many are those pro lifers screaming no abortion adopting? I have three adopted kids. My son at 15 got a girl pregnant and his son is now 21. He had three more kids and he married trash that left him with no business and barely any mind. Guess who's raising the kids. I am.
People have children they cannot care for finacially or otherwise, they cannot even care for themselves. The 21 year old was partially raised by me too. Did he have a choice. Yes. I was very pro life. I see things a little differently now. I love my grandkids but they are lucky, what about the kids brought into this world where they are moved from foster home to abuse and other situations? Yes I believe in Roe V Wade.

That's the whole point.

It is not a law. It was a judicial decision.

In my opinion, it should be a law.

Wasn't old Georgie a judicial decision, too. Oh I guess when they confirmed his illegal votes from Florida that made it legal, event though the Black Caucaus objected. Maybe we could just kick him out !
They keep doing what they are doing with the Supreme Court, if they overturn R v Wade, maybe we could overturn Bush v Gore. At least tie them up in court so he couldn't spend all of his warchest trashing Kerry ! Just a dream I know but I dream like this a lot !

Women have the right do do with their bodies what they want to do.

by the government the right to choose should not even have to be questioned.

As I understand it, the Supreme Court ruled that abortions were protected up until the point the baby was survivable outside the womb -- roughly the end of the second trimester.

The standard should have been based instead on the status of the fetus -- when it develops into a person with legal standing of its own and a right to life. This is the point on which I think the anti-abortion argument has merit -- they just set the cutoff way too early.

Many people are uncomfortable with defining the issue this way because becoming a human is obviously a gradual process -- there IS no point at which a fetus indisputably becomes a baby. But for legal purposes, a clear cutoff has to be established, just like the age of adulthood.

When someone is slowly dying or in a vegetative state, life is often defined by brain function. In the fetus, organized brain function starts to develop closer to the end of the first trimester than the second.

I think that applying this standard would have led to a protected right for abortion up to roughly three months rather than six.

Three months sounds acceptable. A good compromise from both camps.

Let's start writing letters!

I don't think it would work as a compromise, because I don't think the anti-abortionsists would go along with it. Maybe neither side would.

I think that the strength of the ANTI-abortion side is that they're asking the right question: "At what point does an embryo or a fetus become a human being?" I just don't agree with their answers.

Just like I/P, each side has become militarized to the point that they will not cede one inch of ground. Sickening, really.

I agree with you that the anti-abortion side is asking the right question.

I pray that question will be answered soon. You're right, neither side will like it.

because we're unwilling to go along with the prospect that a woman is a slave to the fetus inside her.

If a woman doesn't want a child that she's given birth to, she can turn it over to the State for adoption. If she's pregnant and the fetus has rights, she's compelled by law to serve the fetus without recourse, a clear violation of the 13th Amendment.


Some people would say "Ah, it's just a woman, who cares if she's a slave?" I'm not one of them.

Do you feel a woman has a protected right to an abortion in the ninth month, when the fetus has become by all accounts a newborn able to survive on its own (even if it does not survive an abortion)? The rhetoric loses its steam when used to justify something that's pretty close to infanticide.

The pro-abortion people look just as silly (to me) when they assign rights to a lump of protoplasm.

It's a question of what the cutoff should be. The Supreme Court said it was at the end of two terms, basing that on the question of survival outside the womb. I happen to think the standard is wrong, and that it should be based on when the fetus becomes a baby. I just think the anti-abortion people set the cutoff way, way too early.

Rights conflict. They are not absolute. My own rights are limited by the rights of others. A woman's rights over her own body become limited at the point when the fetus, which might be considered part of her body, becomes an independent human with competing rights.

and of course, THIS IS THE CURRENT STANDARD for the vast majority of late-term abortions. should a woman have to get a permission slip from a judge to save her own life...even in the third trimester of pregnancy? women are capable of making their own decisions about their bodies, and their healthcare, even when they are pregnant...end of story. we really don't need to state to tell us what's best for us...period.

and it is a perfectly good reason for a late-term abortion. Even though it may terminate the life of a potentially viable infant.

My boss had a baby born prematurely at the end of the sixth month. The baby survived. Did that child have any rights at the moment of birth, or does the Constitution protect only the mother's privacy rights for the final trimester? At what point did it stop being "part of the mother's body" and become a separate entity?

The more I talk about this, the more amazing it is. People who are strongly pro-abortion simply refuse to address the question. At all. It shows bad faith to pound the table rather than pound the issue.

I think abortion ought to be safe and legal, but a cutoff should be decided based on the status of the fetus/infant, not the mother.

in three months alot can change a womans partner may leave a job may be lost a person might have to save up money for an abortion a tramatic event could happen and a woman might not able to go along with the emotional/physical trama of being pregnant and labor

abortion just because they are unwilling to care for the child to be horifically disgusting. Let's put it this way, if my wife was three months pregnant, I would allow her to get an abortion because I can't stop her, but I would serve her with divorce papers within an hour and never speak to her again.

"Let's put it this way, if my wife was three months pregnant, I would allow her to get an abortion because I can't stop her, but I would serve her with divorce papers within an hour and never speak to her again."

I'm glad I'm not your wife or your child, if that's truly the attitude you take.

It's not your right to "allow" her to have an abortion, any more than it's your right to "allow" her to vote.

I'm curious if you'd leave her if she chose to abort a fetus with gross defects that weren't survivable. I also wonder if you'd leave her if she had an abortion because there was a good chance that carrying the child to term would kill her.

"I won't allow her" is indeed a partiarchial statement -- it's an attempt by a man to assert power over a woman.

It's rather like when a woman asserts her power over her unborn child and says "I won't allow it to live".

I might be inclined to call such a statement a matriarchial one, but matriarchail seems somehow inappropriate when talking about this.