The discussion was about imposing "beliefs." I've gone to great lengths and many defenses on this because some kind of belief underlies any law and it's dishonest of pro-Choice proponents to try and characterize it as just a pro-Life anal-rententive quality...
Actually the issue for me isn't exactly abortion. The issue in my mind is this- should a living unborn human fetus be protected. This distinction is usually lost in the debate and sometimes ignored by both sides. Pro Choice supporters try to justify that only the woman can decide that, what a hypocrisy! Most women spend their pregnant years doing all in their power to protect the unborn human fetus. Let's stop kidding ourselves pregnancy is no place where women are careless when it comes to protecting the fetus. It is naive not to understand that most women who want to give birth to an unborn human fetus are committed and firm in believing there should be protection afforded the fetus. And there is a large part of the medical field dedicated and profiting from that conviction. On the other hand there is also a large number of women who want to be able to terminate their pregnancy and do not want there to be any legal protection against such. So there it is, since we cannot define if the unborn human fetus has any right to protection we cannot come together with a solution to the abortion issue. Oh, both sides want to reduce the number. BALONEY And pro-lifers claim to care so much for the suffering of the mothers. REALLY This is a great conflict within women so why aren't we focused on the reasons that women both greatly want the unborn fetus to be protected and in other circumstances are convinced otherwise. The root cause of most unwanted pregnancy is known. Be it economics, age, convenience, birth control, rejection, fear, isolation or pressure from others. The root cause of a wanted pregnancy is known also. love for a baby, longing for a family, a desire for children, moral conviction, support from others. Instead of debating the cause of conflict in this area we lock into oversimplified stances on women's choices (which at best is divided and fluctuates by complex economic and socio-factors) and a woman's obligations which is complicated by a lack of successful planning in relation to sexual activities. In other words women get pregnant that don't want to get pregnant or are made to regret getting pregnant. This point about protection was really made clear by Shady's post. I think there was not one of us who read the horror and abuse she suffered and felt she should not have been protected and that it was OK for her mother and brother in law to have their CHOICE as to her right to protection. This is the fundemental issue. Should the unborn human fetus be afforded any protection? If the answer is no. Then I am fine with abortion on demand as it sits in America, but we need to live with that answer as the population grows and abortion becomes more of a means of birth control. And if the answer IS no then let's stop the self righteous claims of wanting to reduce what deserves no protection. If all the women, families, doctors and others who spend their lives firmly working to provide fundemental protection to an unborn human fetus are right in doing such then there should be consideration given to the factors that affect the decisions other make to leave the unborn fetus without protection. I don't recommend a ban on abortion. I recommend we agree that the unborn human fetus deserves protection under the law and we begin to work hard on the problems of providing that protection. In fact I don't recommend any immediate legal actions but instead we start by establishing agreement on protecting the unborn living fetus and then working hard on the external factors that would cause a woman to deny such. There is alot of work to be done be it sex education, birth control, family support, regulation etc You cannot have the issue of protection left unanswered or defined by individual personal preference or situation. That would be like saying we prefer that people do not drink and drive but we want there to be less accidents due to drunk drivers. That is a naive over simplification to the problem and no solution whatsoever. This is where we stand today on the abortion issue. Everyone puts their head in the sand as to why women want abortions and argues to make sure that we never have to ban it again by law. Well, I believe we need to man up and take our head out of the sand and actually find out why some women pay alot of money because they are committed to protecting the unborn child and other women try not to think of it this way. This is where there is no in between. Either we answer how much should the unborn human fetus be afforded protection or we give it none. That puts the issues squarely where it belongs- what humanity does an unborn fetus receive? Partial? If that is the answer then all wanted and loved unborn babies are under a classification that can be later changed. They are only safe for now.
Not good enough. You've spent seven years and thousands of posts here calling for the law to change. You're on the hook to explain what change you want to see. What you're doing here is akin to a pro-choice person saying I'm just all about choice. I want to make sure that a woman's right to privacy and to make her own decisions about her body are protected. Then you come along and say what about abortion and the choicer says, "I'm not oriented to that, I just focus my time and energy on preserving choice." If you refuse to explain what changes you want to see in the law it's completely pointless talking to you about this. I'll help get you started: - What would be the penalty for having/providing an abortion? You regard abortion to be murder so would you like to see abortions charged that way? If so, who is the murderer (the woman or the doctor or both)? Is one an abettor?
I agree with this... first of all I am opposed to abortion but not in favor of changing any law yet. I first would want to understand the need for abortion and the factors affecting not wanting a pregnancy and work hard on that... As far as regulation I would start with determining both circumstance (woman's health for example) and viability (an initial look at trimesters), but this would be preliminary. There is no way to effect a change to abortion law quickly. Society must buy in and that will require examining the issues behind pregnancy and decision to terminate pregnancy not to mention safety of the mother. This is a very complex issue but I think if people really cared to reduce abortions and prevent back ally butchers it can be done. I can envision abortions being reduced from 300,000 annually to 3000 annually. I have hope.
That would mean real, substantive, sex ed in schools. That would mean substantial investments in public schools in general since there is a correlation between education and abortions (IIRC). It would mean calling BS on abstinence only programs. It would mean recognizing that teenagers are human and some are likely to experiment with sex and probably have sex on a regular basis. It would mean distribution of condoms and extensive birth control education. It would probably take a lot more than what I just listed. You favor all these things?
Roe V. Wade never directly addresses the issue of when life begins and strictly reading the Constitution only the born are granted rights. If personhood is granted to the unborn that would presents a host of other problems, such as does a person conceived on US soil get citizenship. Leaving aside the question of rights that isn't a matter of whether a fetus should be protected as we legally provide protections to all sorts of things that aren't given personhood. In this case I think you are painting a false choice of two extremes when philosophically you could still believe that a fetus isn't a person with no rights, that abortion should be allowed yet still want to see a reduction in abortions. Even if you believe it is a clump of cells there are mental and physical health issues associated with abortion that alone would make it a good reason for reducing abortions. The problem with this is that many people spend a lot of their lives protecting all things like animals that are given limited or no legal protections. For instance people spend a lot of time and money on tending their lawns yet we don't provide legal protection to grass. I apologize if this trivializes the argument but to say that because some people see something of great value and others doesn't mean that that should be codified into law. As soon as you define what sort of protections are granted you are placing a ban on abortion. What type of ban depends on what level of protection, such as if you state that after the first trimester the fetus is protected. That is in effect a ban on abortion after the first trimester. Except that I think there can be universal agreement on reducing abortion without a legal ban or even answering the question of whether an embryo or fetus is a person. As I stated earlier we can agree that abortions often cause emotional trauma to the women having them and like any medical procedure there is always some level of physical risk to having them. From that alone we can agree that without a ban we should still like to see the nubmer of abortions reduced. That means addressing the root causes for why there are unwanted pregnancies in the first place. The question of personhood is obviously a critical question and you are correct to note that it is a hang up regarding the debate. It is an absolutist postion and there is a lot practically that can be done to reduce abortion without taking an absolutist stance.
It would take a long time and alot of work, but it would get us somewhere we need to be. I strongly favor working with teenagers. I strongly support education and I do not oppose the distribution of condoms and birth control education. What I also strongly oppose is leaving the parents out of that loop. Face it, parenting must be seen as one root cause of teen pregnancy and I strongly support programs for parents. I can not think of a more fundemental cause of unwanted pregnancy than broken families, a lack of good parenting, abusive home life and neglect. To ignore this will never produce a viable reduction in teen pregnancy IMHO.
This is not entirely true. Roe v. Wade doesn't give a woman carte blanche to have an abortion under any conditions at any point. It protects a fetus past the first trimester....logically implying there is some value to the fetus that deserves protection once the first 3 months of the pregnancy have been completed.
You're right and my bad for forgetting that. From what I recall of the ruling while the placed that limitation the ruling never specifically states when or if a fetus is a person. My own reading of the Constitution is that that would take an ammendment.
The Constitution is a floor for rights...not a ceiling. States can afford MORE protections....but not less than the Constitution affords. There are lots of states that have laws that protect unborn fetuses.
I understands states have done that which is why I stated in my reply to Rhester you could extend protections without answering the question of personhood. There is one problem that I see with doing so is that only the Constitution can define personhood since otherwise would violate the 14th Ammendment. Under the current situation with Roe the mother has a right to privancy that would trump the rights of a fetus. I'm not up on all of the abortion restrictions but it seems like no state, or the Fed could institute a blanket ban on abortion as long as the Court upholds the right to privacy. My understanding is that state limitations are on things like waiting periods and parental consent but things that actually ban abortions haven't been upheld.
no, i meant states have made it a separate offense to kill a fetus as opposed to merely kiling the woman...so if someone attacks a pregant woman and kills the fetus inside, he can be prosecuted for that alone. that's the state recognizing value and rights of a fetus...those rights don't have to flow merely from the Constitution. The Constitution protects you from the government and public actors...not from private actors. i'm with you on the rest. the mother's rights trump the fetuses through the 1st trimester, according to Roe. after that, the mother has to have a legitimate health reason for abortion....it's the watering down of what that means that has given us abortion on demand in this country.
I see what you mean. I am curious though has there been court challenges by defense attorneys to considering an attack on a fetus as an assault or murder of a person?
i don't think that would hold water. there is no competing right of the person who is doing the killing/assaulting that competes with the right of the fetus under the statute.
That was my whole point, I don't think the question of personhood is at play at all, that gets to the whole when is it a person issue. The issue should be when should there be a right to protection. That can be afforded because a fetus is already afforded protection in several states and as noted in actual criminal cases. My point is until we decide there should be afforded protection to the unborn fetus at some point we will not reduce abortions no matter how much we all think it might happen. I believe actually reducing abortions through any means will only begin when there is a reconciliation between the majority of women and doctors who strongly believe there is a right to protect the unborn fetus and the abortion industry- whether there is a law doesn't matter to me. If the sex education and birth control were built upon that right of protection then women's needs could be addressed in a successful manner. No woman who wants to get pregnant does it because they want to have an abortion experience. This is the sillyness of thinking that women don't support a right to protect the unborn fetus. You don't have to ban guns to save the deer population. You don't have to ban abortion to reduce them. But if you don't think guns can wipe out the deer population and you think leaving it in the hunters choice will work, good luck. There has to be efforts to preserve life if you are going to preserve life, be it a fetus or a animal. By debating whether abortion should be legal or banned avoids the reality of how many women and doctors are determined to protect the fetus. This reality is being deliberately left out of the debate and because of that we are not making any progress. I think we should get the sides together and establish a starting point to provide protections for the fetus without endangering the women. Hopeful I am.
I know you are pro-Choice and therefore used to setting the rules for the debate.... .... but I don't have to let you be in charge. I'm in favor of seeing fewer children sacrificed through abortion. I haven't thought about this part of the equation much...
To make my protect the fetus point simple: I believe the pro choice side must recognize there is a right to protect the unborn fetus held by most women and this must be agreed to before we will find common ground that works as far as reducing abortions. Sounds like Roe Wade had that protection in place anyways... what happened?
The fetus is irrelevant to the discussion. Until pro-live-by-my-moral-code advocates accept that, the discussion will continue to go no-where
Wait a second...i'd argue it's far more destructive to the discussion to suggest that the values of one side are "irrelevant." The fetus is not irrelevant...not even according to the Supreme Court and the current state of the law is the fetus irrelevant. The fetus is attributed value and somewhat protected even under Roe analysis. I'm not really for more legislation on this....I'm all for finding other solutions to reduce abortions. But suggesting the fetus is irrelevant to a discussion on abortion is way too dismissive of the concerns of lots people engaged in the discussion.
Thank you. And to think that mc mark is always calling me narrow-minded. I understand the pro-Choice point-of-view and I regretfully only meddle in it because an innocent life is necessarily at stake when she chooses the abort. I regretfully await mc mcark's three-word dismissal upcoming....
