Ever heard of a little thing called “HIPAA”?
BTW, don’t you think the rights of people who are already born trump the rights of those who aren’t? How do you feel about needy people getting assistance with medical bills? The death penalty? Government assistance? Pre-natal care for women? I’ve noticed a LOT of times for some people it seems that life begins at conception…and ends at birth.
Did I? You asserted that “a fetus is a person,” I said that is true, according to some primitive religions.
There are atheists who are pro-life. But they aren’t the core of the movement in America. And producing an example of one doesn’t mean there isn’t a strong evangelical and Catholic push.
Considering the Bible at several points describes life as starting at the first breath, that makes sense, actually.
Except - that’s not what was said there, now is it?
[QUOTE=Planned Parenthood v. Casey - Wikipedia]
The plurality then overturned the formula used in Roe to weigh the woman’s interest in obtaining an abortion against the State’s interest in the life of the fetus. Continuing advancements in medical technology meant that at the time Casey was decided, a fetus might be considered viable at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 weeks that was more common at the time of Roe. The plurality recognized viability as the point at which the state interest in the life of the fetus outweighs the rights of the woman and abortion may be banned entirely “except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother”.
[/QUOTE]
<bolding mine>
It seems somewhat out of context a quote, then, given that the language of the text of that paragraph clarifies that while that principle was reaffirmed, likewise was the notion that those legitimate interests were not sufficient to overcome a woman’s right to choose, prior to viability. In other words that, perhaps in other circumstances (let’s say, how the state punishes an involuntary abortion) those legitimate state interests must be taken into account, but specifically in the case of elective abortion they aren’t a matter that overrides that choice.
IOW, the generally supportive language for your point is negated by the specific exception.
Edit: Beaten to it.
A curse on edit time limits.
Out of interest, Bricker, is “A fetus is a person” also a phrase from that case?
It seems to me the practical differences between breaking into prison and freeing a death row inmate are qualitatively different from stopping an abortionist in the act making it an unreasonable comparison. As it happens, the state isn’t actually killing people in my country.
So that’s your real excuse for not stopping serial baby killers - they’re just following lawful orders. Nice.
Yes, the phrase I used WAS in the decision.
Quoting Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 US 833 (1992), at page 846. Emphasis added.
So, yeah. Did you read the decision or just the Wikipedia summary?
I don’t tend to use or like the “Why aren’t you bombing clinics” argument because I think it’s unnecessary and goofy. But there is a big difference between stopping a private act, even if that act happens to be legal, and stopping a government act.
Kind of the difference between stopping a random person from slapping handcuffs on another person and dragging them off and stopping a cop from doing the same thing. In the latter case, we have as a society expressly given permission to the state to slap people in handcuffs and haul them off or to kill people. I personally am against the death penalty and think it should not exist, but I’m not fool enough (just barely) to think that I get to override the decisions of the rest of the country and interfere with a state decision.
Abortion, as a private act, is different. It’s legal but it is not the act of the state. I think that’s a huge difference but, frankly, not enough of one. And while they are very different, I don’t think demanding people ramp up the crazy actually either benefits the world (more crazy is bad) or the argument (they’ll just say it’s crazy).
Not really, no. Not in Gonzales v. Carhart. In that case, the government’s interest in the fetus that will become a person is upheld. Prior to viability.
I have a question for all you pro-lifers/anti-abortion-rights folks.
Imagine that, by mutual consent or magic decree of some deity, every woman in the US with an unplanned/unwanted pregnancy chose not to terminate, but to carry the baby to term. What then?
Sure, some of the babies would be placed for adoption. The white, healthy ones would probably all get adopted. The cutest of the healthy mixed-race ones, too. But what about the rest? There isn’t enough foster-care resources to take care of all of them adequately. Every states foster-care and child welfare budget would have to increase exponentially.
And then there are the unwanted ones who are not adopted out. Do you have any idea what’s it’s like to be an unwanted, resented child? To have your mother say “If abortion were legal, you wouldn’t be here!” (That was my grandmother to my mother). To have a parent constantly call you stupid, even though you’re in the gifted program at school? (My grandmother to me, during the years when we pretended I was her child and not my teenage mother’s baby). It pretty much sucks.
And then there’s physical abuse, beatings, starvation, neglect, etc. Expect those problems to increase exponentially. We could put a lot of programs and services in place, to help the parents be better parents, but heck, we don’t do much of that now, for poor folks who have chosen not to terminate their “oops” pregnancies. Instead we call them freeloaders, scum, lowlifes who can’t keep their legs closed/keep it in their pants.
Sure, some of the moms and dads will love and cherish their babies, and everything will be hunky-dory for them. And that’s wonderful. But, most likely, most of those women would not have chosen to terminate anyway.
I get it, you want no more abortions. But, then what?
The clear gulf is that those that think any fertilized egg is a baby, and those that know and understand that woman ha rights. And that a zygot is not a person.The anti-abortion group believes the first because of their religious beliefs. Or sometimes misogyny. They ignore science.
It makes we weep for the future of humanity that such folks exist. We should have got over that crap a long time ago.
The USA was founded on separation of church and state.
The anti-abortion people refuse to take into account the needs of a new child, the mother or the family.
Many of them are also (not pointing fingers in this thread, because I don’t know) against Planned Parenthood which provides contraceptives and sex education.The anti-abortion folks would like the GOV to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, but then not give any support. Even in conditions of rape or incest. Misogyny becomes very clear here.
The hypocrisy of those that don’t want to give a woman a choice is stunning.
The Choice folks would like nothing more than choice. Provide family counseling and Planned. Parenthood. Those are the words, and are huge.
What were you doing ten years ago when a genocide was happening in the Sudan? Did you buy a gun and a one-way plane ticket to Darfur?
Building on that point, as far as I know, ‘primitive’ religions generally didn’t take much of a position against abortion. The belief that unborn human beings are persons and deserve protection was fairly unusual in the ancient world (Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians shared it, and subsequently of course Muslims and various heresies of the above. Possibly some of the Germanic tribes too).
The idea that your life begins at fertilization isn’t, of course, a religious belief, it’s a scientific fact. If we were talking about any other species that would be entirely uncontroversial. The idea that personhood starts at conception (if that matters) isn’t a scientific one, but it also isn’t a religious one, it’s a philosophical one. You can be an atheist and believe in souls, etc…
Science can demonstrate pretty well that conception marks a qualitative change, and the beginning of a new human organism, but it can’t really tell us much about when ‘personhood’ starts (personhood is a philosophical concept, not a scientific one).
This suggests the answer is “inconvenience,” not a lack of desire.
So, Aquinas, in his writings about just wars (which cover the morality of just revolution as well) makes it pretty clear that if you are to do violence in a good cause, the violent act needs to be justified both at the level of principle, and at the level of costs and benefits. In other words, there are certain absolutist principles that apply (no intentional killing of the innocent, etc.) but there is also a bar that you need to clear in terms of, ‘does the benefits of taking up arms outweigh the costs’.) Fruitless crusades that kill people for no realistic achievable goal, are ruled out.
Now, regardless of whatever you think about the morality of abortion, it’s clear (at least to me) that vigilantism and private acts of violence, at this place and time, would be an exceptionally bad idea. Not only would they accomplish nothing, but they would cause the total breakdown of law and order, which would be a disaster. I think that at this place and time, in modern America, the monopoly of violence needs to remain with the State, and even if the state is falling down on its duty to suppress abortions, that doesn’t mean I have the right to usurp their privilege.
John Brown and his acts of rebellion were different- the United States at that time was arguably pretty close already to a civil war, and all he did was try and accelerate it a bit- but America in 2014 isn’t the same as America in 1854.
So my assumed inaction over something on the other side of the world excuses your inaction on something that’s happening right now in your city? Have I announced my conviction over what was going on in Sudan? You have stated as fact that babies are getting murdered but hey, carnal didn’t fight in the Sudan conflict 10 years ago so who cares?
I always wondered about those who go to Planned Parenthood not for an abortion but for other reproductive health services, such as cancer screening, HIV screening and counseling, contraception, etc. Do protesters differentiate or do they lump everyone into the same pool?
If those women didn’t want to be called baby killers, they shouldn’t have had female reproductive organs.
I notice a total lack of “because murder is wrong” here. And even worse, you’re wrong about these effectiveness of these tactics. There are very few doctors who still do late-term abortions for fear of murderous pro-lifers.