"Roe" wants abortion case reversed

A) I honestly have never knowingly not answered a post of yours...You are, IMO, among the brightest and funniest posters in here, and I am really very sorry if I've missed responding...I tend to post in flurries when I get time, and can often overlook entire threads I'd forgotten about until days later, and often by then I feel my point has been made by someone else, or the debate has moved on...I'm not sure if that's why I have not answered you before, but if so I apologize.

B) Part of my point about abortion is the fact that we have no concensus on when 'life' begins, and as such I would have to fall back on the fail safe of conception. We know for sure it's not before that,we don't know if it's then or later, but the moral point is moot.It's like firing a gun from across the street...you may not be in the room with the person when the bullet penetrates their body, but you started a chain of events, however temporaly dispalced, which will result in a virtual inevitability short of a fluke. Conception is the same, IMO. Once you conceive, it's not in doubt what will result, short of medical intervention or miscarriage/prenatalfatality; a baby. It's not like it might be a chicken, might be a baby, might be heartburn...It's a baby.

Now can you define it as such? Well, there are all kinds of commonalities and differences, but then again there are more differences between a 1 month old baby and a 30 year old man than a 1 month odl baby and a 3 month old fetus, from many medical and psychological perspectives. But that's my point; when in doubt, which we are, go with the defintion nature gives by virtue of inevitable process.

Also, re Aristotle: As I'm sure you're aware, Aristotle's entire principle of observable criteria had to do with measurable responses...and in this case the measurable salient response of a 1 year old infant is inconsistent with what we define as seperate from animalistic insticnt, or in other words does not qualify as cognative thought. As such, when trying to define what defines us as humans, in the natural world, as seperate from animals, he concluded that it was cognative reasoning, and observed that that begins at about 4 ( if your info is corrrect, I actually forget the particulars of this one )..And while I know we would have a hard time allowing parents to do away with their children up to the age of four, I do see that his argument, from a purely pragmatic perspective, is at least as defensible as distinguishing between trimesters based on brainwave activity our current technology can detect, or any of the other standard arguments.

 

Bang on.

 

MacB,

Peace. I get the reply thing now. The instances were in dense threads.

As for Aristotle, I've always found his line of reasoning disturbing but sensible on the kid front. Seems to me PETA or some such should try to make some hay with a similar argument: a one-yr-old and a beef cow are inseparable in terms of cognitive reasoning. (as I am honestly just now munching a roast beef and spinach sandwich...)

 

I find myself fascinated by McCorvey's reversal in her case. Unfortunately, I don't think that she has much of a chance to get her case overturned. Hopefully this helps her get her message out there and help her overcome her guilty conscience.

MacBeth, I think this is the first thread I've ever seen where I totally agree with you. Such a strange feeling......

 

This may be one of the first where I totally DISagree.

I'm uncomfortable with a lot of men (of which I am one) making decisions and passing laws that have a direct impact on a woman's body and what she does with it. Having said that, I'm not very comfortable with late-term abortions if it's a healthy fetus. (see Haven's post)

I just think that it's a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body.
If one of you smokes or drinks or walks on hot coals... as long as you're not harming anyone else, then it's your decision to make. I might not like it. I might disagree. But it's your right because it's your body. I feel the same way about the "War on Drugs". We are interferring with the choice of someone to do something that affects their body without allowing them their own choice. If they don't get in a car and drive or do something else harmful to someone else, then I don't have a problem with it.

It's a very contentious issue, and reasonable people can disagree about it (and too often unreasonable people), but it still comes down to one thing for me. The freedom to choose what to do with your own body, as long as it doesn't harm another person. (which leads back to the crux of the argument, of course) I try to stay away from threads about this subject, but this seems like a pretty civilized discussion (instead of a pis*ing contest), so I thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

 

Here here Deckard!

For no mind will changed!

jeez, talk about a prepositional phrase.


I think this is just such a personal issue.

 

Actually, I didn't mean for that to be a freeze-out, just a question for the zealots who "know" that their way is right. I fully acknowledge that others have different beliefs based on their experience, and I love seeing how those beliefs mesh with my way of thinking. Please discuss freely as I am one of the most openminded people you might care to meet (except about the drug war, but that is another thread).

Absolutely correct. I am not a huge predestination person (it fits in my philosopy, but free will is king), so I used the example. If she is destined to try to have an abortion and be thwarted, chances are she will go for door number 2 and have an illegal or out of country abortion. I believe that ALL medical procedures shoud be overseen by regulatory agencies, which won't happen if we revert to back alley abortions.

I actually think that the line needs to be at the point where the baby could survive on its own. A late term abortion ban would not be for public safety, it is simply the right of the baby to live outside the mother if it can.

 

Very strange bed-fellows on this thread.

 

<b>Deckard, haven, et al</b>, what about the human DNA of the fetus before sentient thought? Doesn't that make the baby irrefutablly human? Why does it not deserve protection under the law... unless it is killed by a handgun in a holdup gone bad involving a pregnant woman.

Yeah a woman (or a man for that matter) can walk on hot coals until their knees melt if that's what they want to do but decisions about abortion do involve another human life... regardless of how much or how little value anyone places on it.

 

If it is a mass of cells that is not capable of LIVING outside the womb, it is not a LIFE yet.

At most, it involves a POTENTIAL human life, which does not trump the woman's right to be secure in her person and to choose what happens to and in her body.

 

The cells are indeed living. How can you dispute that? From a fairly early point, that "mass of cells" dreams, smiles, hiccups and probably farts. That is a life.

I'm glad that you feel comfortable in making that decision knowing, as MadMax pointed out so eloquently, the huge and terminal error in judgement you could be making.

What is this drivel about a woman being secure in her person?

 

I like the farting criterion suggested by giddyup.

But as for dreaming and what-not, that's a good one too. See haven's post concerning brain activity.

 

They don't even begin to look for anatomical development in an ultrasound until 20 weeks, and there is no evidence that the fetus has any awareness until much later in the pregnancy. Again, I assert that if it can live outside the mother's body, it is viable and should not be terminated. Otherwise, it is the mother that is sustaining it with HER body and HER life force. It should remain her choice until the baby can survive on its own.

What error in judgement? MadMax hasn't responded to me or my assertions in this thread.

The fourth amendment gives Americans the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." This applies to search warrants, but the sentiment is that people should have the right to know that they can do what they like with their bodies.

The framers of the Constitution were used to the government of the time, the British crown, doing things like searching them without cause, seizing property and papers at will, and otherwise intruding in the lives of the citizens. The framers obviously wanted to keep the government out of the everyday life of the citizen and would certainly have looked down upon legislation taking away the right to do what one chooses with one's body.

Just because you have a certain set of moral beliefs does not give you the right to shove those beliefs down anyone's throat through legislation. Thank God for separation of church and state!

 

I agree. About the 6th or 7th month, the baby can live on its own and should be considered a life.

And it is a sticky ethical situation to make a choice for someone else based on your own personal morality. Morality is personal and should not be forced on another.

 

Heard the one about the pot calling the kettle black? You know it's only been that way for less than 15% of This Great Nation's history. I'm glad your such an expert on the mindset of the framers of our Constitution. I wonder if they had ever even heard of an abortion? Obviously Thomas Jefferson didn't or he wouldn't have had all those extra kids.

I've looked at ultrasounds of 3 of my 4 children. The equipment has gotten so much better since 1986. What are you saying? That there is no anatomical development until 20 weeks?

With certainty that mass of cells is human and will become a human being if left to come to term.

The fetus lives in a very secure, unstimulating, "caged" environment. Forgive it for it's lack of awareness about the outside world but don't execute it for that naivete. Are you kidding?

Max and I both wrote of the error in judgement that you <b>could</b> be making. Your brashness in tromping over that possibility is costing lives.

Your Fourth Amendment must have been ghost authored by Plastic Man. Who is forcing women to have their bodies invaded?

Rather it is the unborn who are having their Fourth Amendment violated. Shoot a pregnant woman with a handgun, kill her baby, let her live and see if you get tried for murder/manslaughter.

 

Easy, how right you are. I was reading the new responses, and I had this sudden realization that we're all getting old. "We're not ripping one another's heads off", I thought.

Then I clicked the next page button.

We have atheists in this thread acknowledging that abortion is murder... and now we have a couple of believers bickering over whether or not some little bugger, who trusts his mom with his life, has marked off enough check boxes to join our oh so elusive club of rights and privies (that's why I came out... tired of swimming in my own pee).

andy, all my respect... but tabula rasa thyself for un momento. Pretend that there aren't reasons to beg the question that it will always be necessary for abortions to be legal. Now ponder the argument that is so routinely postulated as the defense of abortion.

"It's not human".
"It can't do the things that we can do".

Is this not the most arbitrary, bull****, post hoc argument on the face of the planet? A man and a woman shed haploid gametes... they fuse and form a zygote. That zygote is a human. By definition. By definition. This isn't a magical wonderland where the baby is baked for a few mos. and then the magical soul fairy comes down and taps the woman's stomach, thereby giving the infant inherent value. It's a human. There aren't souls. There aren't soul fairies.

There is only sex. And offspring. Repeat.

Call a spade a spade. There isn't a continuum of being a human. I don't get to say "well, the slow kid on the shuttle thinks, for 18 hours a day, about brushing her teeth. maybe I should kill her".

 

I'm not bickering; I'm outright asserting. And I feel that s/he receives those rights and privies de facto.

Achebe, your wonderfully complex, ironic, sarcastic and intelligent warbling on any topic is sufficient evidence of the human soul. Even your occasional outright ugliness is evidence of same.

Glad you're back. You are back, right?

 

Andy . .. Doesn't the 1st sentence contradict the 1st one
If she does not have the right to ask or demand anything from the court
How and when did she lose this right .. . becuase didn't abortion result from her Demanding and Asking something in the 1st place. . . only thing that change is what is being demanded

Rocket River