RvW strike that balance. The right to abortion is only guaranteed through the first trimester. After that, a state can ban abortions to their liking but must have an exception for the life or health of the mother. It's a baseline to work from where 80% of American agree with. That baseline is about to be obligated by the 'personhood' extremist view. Once RvW is struck down, State that has laws allowing abortion beyond the first trimester will continue to have them. Nothing will change there (not entirely correct - but at least on the day after). But states can now ban all abortion with no exceptions including death to women. Essentially, striking down RvW allows states like TX, OK, and so on to ban 1st-trimester abortion and have zero exceptions for women's life or health. It's extremism.
The concept of “personhood” is a moral/legal thing that we invented. Agreeing on a set of criteria that are well-defined and science-based is sensible. Edge cases (like prenatal life) may require accepting some uncomfortable solution. The right approach is to find solutions that minimize widespread social harm with the edge cases. An absolute ban on women’s access to safe and affordable abortion in the early portion of her pregnancy is definitely not the right choice. But, again, the goal here — especially for Republicans — is to exploit the vagueness around what it means to be a “person” for political advantage.
That would be like saying the right to "due process" allows people to get away with crimes and critics of due process have made those type of claims. Clearly not anything but things like 'body autonomy" would certainly fall under the right to privacy.
It's a seriously complex issue with a long history. Abortion before "quickening" (when fetus movement can be felt) was legal during the colonial period. It was legal all the way through until the 1820s. The 1860s was when it was commonly illegal in the US. (The draft calling on US tradition as justification for striking down RvW is such as joke). Who pushed it to become illegal? Doctors (white male Christian). Two reasons. Abortion was commonly done at home by the untrained at a much lower price. Economic competition for the trained doctor. Scientific advancement in understanding how cells grow into a fetus and eventually a baby. That understanding + yes, predominately Christain viewpoint, along with economic interest was why Dr and the AMA pushed for making abortion illegal. Once it became illegal, the opposing forces started to gain power - women's rights. Feminism. Eventually, lead to RvW. And since RvW, with politicians like Nixon making it a political hot button issue, it has ever since been a very polarizing issue, even though the US public has traditionally and still now today supported 'common sense' abortion rights and restrictions. While it's grounded in some Christain views, there is also a non-Christain view toward abortion - a philosophy of when life began. No one knows and no one likely will ever know. Maybe one of these days we know and that make it much easier on society - but for now, we got 80% in the middle with some 20% at the extreme. RvW is in the 80%. Striking it down is by extremists for extremists and we are heading toward more extremism. As usual, these kinds of actions will have a strong rebound effect. it might take years, but it will happen.
Whistling would be a form of speech, so probably not that. Headphones and back scratching are not Constitutional rights. I don't forsee laws against them though. Just because something is not a Constitutionally protected right, doesn't mean it is going to be outlawed. The definitions of the words zygote, living, and human say that a zygote is a living human. It is something with unique human DNA that is undergoing self-sustaining biological processes. That has nothing to do with beliefs or God, it is in fact science. Actually I quite thoroughly addressed the merits of the argument, and am not at all unhinged. You posted something incredibly stupid, that states can charge you for breathing because it is a legally guaranteed right. It makes absolutely no sense. You also think that a guarantee of the right to life doesn't somehow also guarantee breathing. These are not difficult arguments to counter. There is no need to rely on any religious argument to oppose abortion. I haven't advanced a single religious argument, nor did the draft opinion. No one has made reference to a soul. There is no requirement that something be visible to the naked eye to be a human life. That is simply not part of the definition of human life. Even beyond that, overturning Roe doesn't even require a finding that it is a human life. There is nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing the right to end a potential human life either, or a zygote, or a fetus, or a blastocyst.
I think the religious argument is so ingrained in our culture that I just think you are overlooking it because of how ingrained it is. This might sound harsh but I think many conservatives in this nation have been brainwashed into merely holding the opinion that "human life is valuable" in a indoctrinated matter rather than humanist natural manner that incorporates empathy. Religious doctrine creates this concept of a "soul" which is a non-secular spiritually religious concept. That doctrine says that this soul is valuable because it was made by god. That understanding of "life is valuable" has handicapped this portion of society into only valuing a life from the concept of a higher power creating it rather than understanding the concept of empathy and attempting to understand another individual's pain, fears, desires, motivations which naturally leads to your desire to value that life. It's the sentience why cherish. Empathy naturally leads to the conclusion of "human life is precious". It's precious because we can feel these things. For me at least, what people actually mean by "life", they are referring to "sentience". No one holds much value in the right to life of a benign bacterial cell minding its own business. Why? Because that bacterial cell does not have desires, hopes, fears, wishes, love etc. For a woman or a young couple that plans a pregnancy, the value in a clump of non-sentient cells multiplying is comes from their hopes and desires of the future. The joy of being a future parent is what allows women who planned their pregnancies to endure the pain that giving birth comes with. For a young teenage girl who didn't plan it is going through immense emotional and physical pain. Their fears of future uncertainty knowing they are no where ready to be a parent makes me generate empathy for that girl and that makes me value her life over the non-sentient lump of cells. Hence why the vast majority and I are against late term abortions unless the mother's life is in jeopardy. Yes, at that point the baby probably can feel things like discomfort and pain. At this point it you have to judge which life is more valuable because we reached a zero sum game situation with one or the other. So I'm choosing the life that has more memories, fears, hopes etc because I'm naturally going to be more inclined to be more empathetic to the later. My line of thinking isn't flawless. For example does that mean in some odd zero some game between a cat and a fetus, will I value the cat more and chose it over the human fetus coming to term? According to what I just typed, yes because a adult cat has more memories, fears, desires of trying to avoid stressed and in pain etc.
I just mean most democrats are against late term abortions. Most people think it gets iffy after 20 weeks. Personally, I would have been fine with even a 15 week ban...like you had months to think about this decision, that's more than enough time to make it, IMO. 6 weeks most women don't even know they are pregnant, 15 weeks they'd have to be clueless or ill not to know. We will probably never know when a 'life' starts in the womb so it is kind of pointless to argue it and it will differ based on religion to religion. Scientifically, you can argue that a life starts at conception, you can argue that it starts before, you can argue that a person isn't a person until it is sentient... But I think most people...globally even, are uncomfortable with late term abortion. @StupidMoniker tried to frame this as a position Dems hold, it's not. Most of the country agrees with Roe which is like 25 weeks IIRC? But I think Roberts position that 15 weeks with exception is the moderate position that most would agree with...but yeah, the extremist position that it starts at birth is taken by more people and is the one being acted on. I don't feel like getting the numbers exactly but the VAST majority, like well over 90% happen before the 15 week period. Only like 2% of abortions are late term and these are almost always the rare cases of the mother life being in danger or the baby being DOA anyway. If the GOP had run on Roberts moderate position they would have easily won this issue. Instead we have the opposite.
I didn't even mention timing, that was something you read into what I said. I simply said that those who view the fetus as a lump of cells do not think the rules for removing it should be more restrictive than the rules for removing an appendix. In fact, inherent in this framing is that whatever cutoff you imagine for the lump of cells transitioning to a human is when you would no longer support unlimited abortion, because it is the very characterization of the fetus as something other than a living human that undergirds that position. Late term abortions are a red herring. So are abortions for rape and incest. That isn't at the heart of the matter. Elective abortions in the first or early second trimester are the real issue to discuss, because that is almost all abortions.
Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Since by your own admission we obviously draw the line on some things... who should be the body that decides where we draw those lines? The public through their elected representatives or 9 judges appointed for life with no accountability for their decisions?
This just isn't true. People arguing this are not usually saying that a fetus is a lump of cells. But we have terms for these things...Zygotes and Embryos are not fetuses. I mean you are right, late term abortions and rape abortions are red herrings, the real discussion is early term abortions...if you want to call it a discussion. It isn't even close that most people in this country are completely fine with abortions before 20 weeks...so I'm not sure how much of a discussion we should be having here when something is so clearly favored by the majority of a country usually that thing should be respected. It's not like we're still having debates about interracial marriage or child labor...but we're still having imaginary debates about early term abortions when the vast majority of the country support them for some reason.
Okay, zygote, embryo, blastocyst. BTW it is a fetus at 8 weeks, so we are talking about fetuses too. That bottom section with only 45% support in the first trimester (that would be the first 12 or so weeks)? That is nearly all abortions.
I think your poll is missing some context, maybe this question meant if they personally supported the action and not if they think it should be legal or not? But this is from that same poll... This is why I think there is more credence to the idea that if any SCOTUS wanted this to leak, it's Roberts. He's been advocating for a 15 week ban with exceptions which I think most everyone would be fine with.
Let's take back scratching - so you are saying states can ban this since it's not a constitutional right? But it is! The 9th amendment for instance clearly states that just because a right isn't listed in the constitution doesn't mean it's not a right. The 14th amendment clearly states you can not pass a law that abridges the privileges of citizens. The right to liberty for citizens is clearly stated. Now, you are arguing that a zygote is a "living human being" based on semantical nonsense. Any rational person can look at a zygote and say that's not a human being. In fact, you can't even see it, nor can you identify it as human without destroying it. Science can not tell you when a human being comes into existence. It's purely a philosophical question - a belief system. No one can definitively say a human being is a zygote. That's an opinion of yours. Regardless, you can't argue that a zygote is a citizen of the United States. So it can not have the right that are assigned to citizens.
Liberty doesn't mean back scratching, it means you cannot be detained. That's why it says you cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. You cannot be killed, jailed, or fined without due process. The 10th amendment states that those rights not expressly listed in the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people. Do you think that means that anything not expressly listed as a right in the Constitution is therefor a right of the people? No, it doesn't mean that. There is no constitutional right to torture your neighbors or to lie in court or any number of other things that are not listed in the Constitution. There is no support for a right to back scratching. There is no support for a right to abortion. A zygote is a living human being in the same way that a fetus is, or an infant, or a toddler, or a preteen, or a 23 year old woman, or a 99 year old man. They are all just stages of life of one being. You don't transform into a different entity when you go from a zygote to an embryo to a fetus, you just grow and develop. The whole blueprint is in there right from the beginning and the cell division and differentiation builds out the infant body over the period of gestation. There is no magic point where you suddenly become human, you were human the whole time. In fact, the argument that you become human at some later point is the religious argument. In Islam, it is at 4 months of development. In Christianity (and Judaism?) is is when God breaths your soul into you. The scientific reality is that you are human right form the start. Were you under the impression that only citizens' rights are protected? Do you think I can just go to the homes of non-citizen immigrants and kill them all?
Evangelicals would ban contraception if they had it their way - and that's the fundamental problem with the abortion debate - that it's rooted in religion vs science. People can make up this ridiculous notion that a zygote is a human being when clearly it's not, but they do that because their religion tells them that, and therefore they want to project that onto everyone else. I think it should be 26 weeks. After that it should be because there is something very wrong with the child (like it doesn't have a brain) or the mother's life is in danger.
actually it says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;" It certainly seems like abortion should be a privilege granted to women that states should not try to abridge. So you are saying if a zygote dies then we should have a funeral? That's it's a tragedy? Are you against in-vitro fertilization then? As many zygotes get destroyed that way, but it's the only way some women can get pregnant? How many zygotes have tombstones by the way? If you claim a zygote to be a living human being, and a citizen of the US - you're going to create a lot of ridiculous ideas that flow from that.
The debate here is personhood, isn’t it? Of course a zygote is human and is life. That’s just biological reality. But rights are ascribed to persons. US law leaves it open whether prenatal human life is a person and when it attains personhood. Correct me if I’m wrong.
It says both. You referenced liberty, so I gave you the clause that referenced liberty (the due process clause). You may think so, but it certainly is not listed. The privileges and immunities clause did not grant new rights - it made sure that the states could not take away rights that were previously protected for white citizens from the newly freed black citizens. If a zygote dies, you are never going to know you are pregnant. It is only a zygote for a few days post fertilization. You won't even test pregnant until it is an embryo. Yes, it is a tragedy, but thankfully one we are spared from knowing. Yes, I am against IVF, where many more embryos are lost than are ever developed. I never said anything about citizens, that was you. You thought only citizens have rights. Try to keep up. SL42 was arguing that a zygote was not a human life.
The constitution specifically says citizens and the interpretations of the clause I quoted is that there are too many rights to be fully enumerated in the constitution but should be considered as basic rights. Regardless if Supreme Court judges don't agree on this over all these years, then clearly we are not going to resolve this. But if you believe it is a tragedy that a zygote is lost when trying to help a woman have a baby because it doesn't take, and therefore should be stopped, do you also consider yourself religious?
