Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
- 37,518
- 8,103
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Actually, it's been observed that Trump has no soul whatsoever, "there's a hole where (his) soul's supposed to be:"I don't think Trump has a soul, but maybe that's besides the point.
Actually, it's been observed that Trump has no soul whatsoever, "there's a hole where (his) soul's supposed to be:"I don't think Trump has a soul, but maybe that's besides the point.
First, I am of the conviction that a Fetus is clearly a human life, and more importantly humans with lives should be granted person-hood status.
The Roe v Wade decision was based on the idea that a fetus is a non-person and thus not entitled to protection under the law. However, it seems to me that the state has no right to demand that any person give/lease/lend or otherwise allow another person access to any of their body parts. Said simply, it wouldn't matter if your finger nail trimmings would save another person's life - the state has no right to demand your body parts.
For example, a corpse can't have its parts used to save someone else's life without consent.
So while I don't believe anyone has a right to kill a fetus - because a fetus is a person - a fetus has no right to a woman's uterus. Therefore a woman has an inalienable right to choose to remove a fetus from her uterus.
There is no right to bodily autonomy.
Once again, for somebody who claims to be so enlightened on this topic, you write such utterly appalling statements. It is people like you that gave us:
Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Plessy v. Ferguson
Pace v. Alabama
Korematsu v. United States
Bowers v. Hardwick
Thankfully we live in a much more enlightened society that doesn't endorse your view of "no right to bodily autonomy." Our society rightfully rejects the obtuse views that your logic endorses, including slavery, anti-interracial marriage laws, anti-sodomy laws, internment camps, and Separate but equal bull-crap. On the flip side, the "right to bodily autonomy" is not absolute. Our society is complex. There is no single answer to all of this. We live in a world of gray and to deny this and make the asinine claim you just did will only enable future generations to make the same mistakes that our previous and/or current generations made.
There is no right to bodily autonomy. The idea that someone in society may hold themselves aloof from society makes no sense, and suggests that society in turn may hold itself aloof, selectively denying a person the protection of the laws, for example. Society manifestly does not credit the claim. Society can conscript citizens into war,, compel them to public service, prohibit them to take illegal drugs or prostitute themselves, quarantine them, take blood samples from them, and require them to receive immunizations and submit to medical examinations, all legally in the public purpose, all in one way or another taking, restricting, or intruding into the body, and all without the person's consent. In the public purpose, it can plainly prohibit a woman from deliberately killing an innocent human being.
OK, perhaps it's a matter of terminology. There may not be a right to 'bodily autonomy', but I believe there is a right to bodily integrity.
It's also a matter of practicalities - the level of control required to prevent a woman ever terminating a pregnancy doesn't seem consistent with a society concerned with human rights. If it is inside your body and it is utterly dependent on you, it's just not the same thing as a human being who is physically separate from others and part of society in their own right. Outside the womb an infant may not be 'autonomous' (are any of us?) but it could potentially be sustained and nurtured by anyone, it's not inescapably connected with one individual.
But this is perhaps a fundamental difference in starting points, and a reason why the topic might never cease to be a matter of dispute. Though it's very notable that its much more a controversial issue in the US than in most of Europe, and that's probably to do with the effect of religion, I guess.
The one part of the British Isles (not just the UK) where attitudes remain hardline would be Northern Ireland, which is more socially conservative than either the UK or the Republic of Ireland. It seems interesting that long-standing conflict has caused both groups to remain entrenched even about the topics that they agree on. (Maybe they'd be OK with it if a three-minute warning could be given to the foetus?)
An American I know 'blamed' anti-abortion sentiment there on lower-income groups. That didn't accord with my own experience but when I looked at the opinion poll data it was quite striking that in the US attitudes are indeed correlated with social economic status, while in the UK they are not. The only group in this country who are strongly anti-abortion appears to be, awkwardly enough, Muslims. Even Catholics are more 'liberal' than one would expect. And it really doesn't have much to do with class.
In the meantime, Atreus21, there are people out there who might die without your kidneys.
Yes, that's true.
All thoughtful input. But we're not talking about forcibly taking organs from people. We're talking about forcibly killing people.
Question though: If it were possible to remove the fetus to an artificial womb as soon as the mother discovered she was pregnant, without any harm to either party, would you oppose abortion? It's hardly far-fetched - they can do it with sheep now.
OK then, as part of the plan to "do better" supporter you're saying you will agree to help raise a child whose mother for whatever reason did not want to become pregnant. You can take him/her 25% of the time and stay up when he/she can't sleep and is crying, you also get to change diapers and cut back you're work schedule. Wait, what, you want no part of this?, you'd insist that this child MUST be born so I'd insist you MUST participate in raising him/her.So there should be no protections for the unborn up until birth then? I mean that's the simplest and most efficient way to set things up... I just happen to think we can do better than that.
I don't want consistency.
Fertilized eggs are not peopleThere is no right to bodily autonomy. The idea that someone in society may hold themselves aloof from society makes no sense, and suggests that society in turn may hold itself aloof, selectively denying a person the protection of the laws, for example. Society manifestly does not credit the claim. Society can conscript citizens into war,, compel them to public service, prohibit them to take illegal drugs or prostitute themselves, quarantine them, take blood samples from them, and require them to receive immunizations and submit to medical examinations, all legally in the public purpose, all in one way or another taking, restricting, or intruding into the body, and all without the person's consent. In the public purpose, it can plainly prohibit a woman from deliberately killing an innocent human being.
There is no right to bodily autonomy. The idea that someone in society may hold themselves aloof from society makes no sense, and suggests that society in turn may hold itself aloof, selectively denying a person the protection of the laws, for example. Society manifestly does not credit the claim. Society can conscript citizens into war,, compel them to public service, prohibit them to take illegal drugs or prostitute themselves, quarantine them, take blood samples from them, and require them to receive immunizations and submit to medical examinations, all legally in the public purpose, all in one way or another taking, restricting, or intruding into the body, and all without the person's consent. In the public purpose, it can plainly prohibit a woman from deliberately killing an innocent human being.
LOL not my problem. Cross your legs slut.You righties want to get rid of social safety nets right now, what do you think will happen with these parentless babies? Will you be willing to pay more in taxes in order to take care of them? Are you willing to accept higher crime rates that would result from millions of un-adopted children growing up? Are you ok with the increase in even more pregnancies that follows orphans who age out of the system who are never adopted?
You are compounding a problem that was already diminishing. For what? So that you can impose your personal beliefs on others?
Oh, it's worse, these alt-right nutbags think even birth control administered through social services must be banned too. In GA, their laws enable prosecution of a woman who goes out of state for an abortion.You righties want to get rid of social safety nets right now, what do you think will happen with these parentless babies? Will you be willing to pay more in taxes in order to take care of them? Are you willing to accept higher crime rates that would result from millions of un-adopted children growing up? Are you ok with the increase in even more pregnancies that follows orphans who age out of the system who are never adopted?
You are compounding a problem that was already diminishing. For what? So that you can impose your personal beliefs on others?
If you have to pay for it with higher taxes for social services it becomes "your problem".LOL not my problem. Cross your legs slut.
I absolutely can't think that many step ahead.If you have to pay for it with higher taxes for social services it becomes "your problem".
Moonbeam's two successive posts had great insight.
But let's stop all of this confused nonsense.
Jefferson and the other Founders came up in the "Age of Reason". Anyone who thinks they meant to establish a "Christian" nation-state is blowing wind out their keester and trying to sell it to you as fact.
The created a SECULAR nation-state, based on a notion of "The Rights of Man [Person]", in the face of their own racist hypocrisy about slavery and the role of women as chattel. "Chattel" -- that's a word one might associate as a linguistic derivative of the word "cattle", but they are both derived from the same Latin word -- capitale or capitalis, from which we also have another derivative word -- "Capital" -- as in the title of Marx's book "Das Kapital" and "capitalism".
If they invoked God in our national archive documents, it occurred in the "Declaration of Independence". That was a common practice since the Magna Carta. It's purpose was to show respect to the King in a world that favored a "Divine Right of Kings". Hobbes did it "to Please your Majesty" and offering respect to God, but he was writing about the nature of the nation-state in a world where life was "brutish, nasty and short". It was therefore appropriate, writing to King George, that these conventions were used in the Declaration, and what better way to argue "the Rights of Man" than to say they were given by God?
Check and see, but I don't think God was invoked in the text of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with the words "We the People", proceeding with the purpose to form a "more perfect union". Arguments to the contrary, the best understanding of the Constitution's very nature defines it as a legal document -- a contract -- between each and every citizen with all other citizens. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood's memorable line from Unforgiven about the word "deserves" -- "God ain't got nothin' to do with it".
What is the objective and nature of Law in the secular nation-state? Simply, it is to define a framework of a civilized society which allows people to come and go freely to pursue their various interests without harm from other individuals. To quote, as I often do, the letter read in the saloon at end of the western "The Oxbow Incident", "What is the Law?" Here again is the excerpt:
"Law is a lot more than words you put in a book......or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out.
It's everything people ever have found out about justice......and what's right and wrong.
"It's the very conscience of humanity.
"There can't be any such thing as civilization.....unless people have a conscience......because if people
touch God anywhere......where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience...
...except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?"
Now here, in this movie script, we have a nexus between "God" and the Law. I won't call it a "confusion", but it's easy to become confused. The clarification arises from reference to "people", the "conscience of humanity", "a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?"
The Secular State, treating all religions equally together with "no religion" or Atheism, creates Law which is the intersection of Laws set forth in many religious beliefs, with the intention of making it possible to maintain a civil order and allow people to come and go, following their individual pursuits -- as we said. That's why the nonsense the Righties pose of a threat that we'll be infected by "Sharia Law" is just that -- nonsense. We aren't going to have laws promoted by a few, yet offensive to many.
Now we have all sorts of arguments about "when a fetus becomes a person". And we've only admitted that people of different races and people of the "fairer sex" -- are people, equal to everyone else. Since 1776, those developments were more recent.
Consider again, a quote from the New Testament known to most all, when Jesus says "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's . . . " This is famously assumed to mean "pay your [freakin'] taxes!" But if Jesus meant that, then consider what Caesar, and the Emperor Caesars who followed, did all over the Mediterranean and Europe. The Caesars killed and probably exterminated millions of people. How could Jesus tell us to pay or taxes, when the end result would be murder, war, and genocide?
So it doesn't matter whether a fetus is a "person". It does matter, though, that a fetus is part of a woman's body, and women are no longer chattel -- to be directed to bear children or forbidden to abort fetuses. If I ask a doctor to cut off my balls, would it be legal and possible? Save that for another hair-splitting argument.
If abortion is murder, remember that the neo-Nazis are all enthralled with the good ol' days of the Gurreat Roman Empire, when they killed people for sport in the Coliseum. If it's permissible by the secular state to terminate a fetus -- and we still have this ongoing, obtuse and endless discussion about "when life begins" -- and if you think abortion is a sin or it's murder, then don't get an abortion! Anyone who gets an abortion may subscribe to all of those moral prohibitions, but do it anyway. People who think theft is wrong may still be shoplifters. People who believe in the Truth may still Lie.
We allow prostitution in Reno, gambling in Las Vegas, and all sorts of things that have religious, moral prohibitions. This is because we've decided that doing these things is not a threat to the civil order.
To prevent a woman from doing as she pleases with her own body, whether she sells her flesh or terminates a fetus, is a form of oppression, unless you subscribe to the idea that women are chattel.
That's why I now declare personal civil war against the Governor and Legislature of Alabama. Show up in my State for a vacation from Alabama while supporting its government on this issue, and, given the opportunity, I'll ruin your day when I can, humiliate you in public and call you out. I'll tell you "go back to your flyover white-trash red-state shithole, mix some Kool-Aid, and book a cruise to Hell for your whole degenerate family!"
Don't impose your religious beliefs on my freedom, even if I subscribe to the same beliefs. They aren't the religious beliefs of "every man". The secular state only defines a secular morality according to what is more common to all, ensuring the progress of civilization and the preservation of a nation-state's civil order.
NO! NO it does not! It defines morality in terms of what is common to enough people to get a law passed.The secular state only defines a secular morality according to what is more common to all,
So ethically it's better to kill all the kids in orphanages?Don't you realize that it's a tragedy for a child to be brought up by a mother that would have preferred to have an abortion? It's A BIGGER TRAGEDY.
There is no right to bodily autonomy. .............. In the public purpose, it can plainly prohibit a woman from deliberately killing an innocent human being.
Don't you realize that it's a tragedy for a child to be brought up by a mother that would have preferred to have an abortion? It's A BIGGER TRAGEDY.
So ethically it's better to kill all the kids in orphanages?
You righties want to get rid of social safety nets right now, what do you think will happen with these parentless babies?
Will you be willing to pay more in taxes in order to take care of them?
Are you willing to accept higher crime rates that would result from millions of un-adopted children growing up?
Are you ok with the increase in even more pregnancies that follows orphans who age out of the system who are never adopted?
You are compounding a problem that was already diminishing. For what? So that you can impose your personal beliefs on others?
I cant speak for all conservatives, but most I know dont oppose a safety net on principle. We just dont want it so expansive as to make people dependent on government. To answer your question, I dont know exactly what would happen to these parentless babies. Adoption, or some alternative for better or worse. But no matter how bad that may get, its preferable to being killed.
If that's what it takes, absolutely.
As opposed to preemptively killing them? Absolutely.
Yes, and we should offer as much help and support as possible to such women and children.
No problem on this earth should include the deliberate death of innocents among it's available solutions.
Then YOU might want to start electing politicians that agree with you, as of now, none of the Republican in office support your views with their actions.
The democrat Governor of Louisiana surely does.
Sorry, at the end of the day the government has NO BUSINESS getting involved in anyone's decision as to how THEY want to move forward with their lives. You dip-shit's think that "help and support" will cascade down like a magic waterfall to make a pregnant 15 yr old "all better", the alt-right-Christian movement will spend considerable resources talking/shaming/bribing a young woman out of abortion but JACK-SQUAT once the child has been born. if someone asked you if a young mother + baby can come live with you for awhile, you'd bolt like a jackrabbit.I cant speak for all conservatives, but most I know dont oppose a safety net on principle. We just dont want it so expansive as to make people dependent on government. To answer your question, I dont know exactly what would happen to these parentless babies. Adoption, or some alternative for better or worse. But no matter how bad that may get, its preferable to being killed.
If that's what it takes, absolutely.
As opposed to preemptively killing them? Absolutely.
Yes, and we should offer as much help and support as possible to such women and children.
No problem on this earth should include the deliberate death of innocents among it's available solutions.
Yes, that's true.
All thoughtful input. But we're not talking about forcibly taking organs from people. We're talking about forcibly killing people.
Question though: If it were possible to remove the fetus to an artificial womb as soon as the mother discovered she was pregnant, without any harm to either party, would you oppose abortion? It's hardly far-fetched - they can do it with sheep now.
Did you vote for her? Did you vote for other legislators who share your views about increasing taxes to pay for these children or did you just vote for those that opposed abortion without any plans for what came next?The democrat Governor of Louisiana surely does.