# Abortion-clinic picketers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935 "2011-05-06T05:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 43
**Author:** ![classyladyhp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@classyladyhp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/classyladyhp)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/841 "2011-05-12T19:21:48Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Interesting article. I skimmed, but bookmarked for a later read. Yes it is. I’m glad you liked it:) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/842 "2011-05-12T19:23:33Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > Aside from Bryan…(since I’m not sure what he is.)…any other people out there ok with abortion after viability. I’m fine with it. The woman’s right to not be pregnant trumps the fetus’s rights to live. Easy peasy. Also, an abortion is always easier on the woman physically than a live delivery, which is very important if she is having health issues, and she can get pregnant more quickly if it’s a problem with the fetus. ---
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/843 "2011-05-12T19:23:43Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > In situations like this they could both die you know. So it’s ok to murder the child to relieve a risk the mother bears as a result of choice? Without intervention, they _could_ both die. Aren’t we playing God by intervening? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/844 "2011-05-12T19:24:12Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > So lets see can we get back on topic? I think the thread is about pro-life demonstrators. You mean about how they’re a bunch of doofuses whose bullying is kept barely in check by having to waste law-enforcement and court resources on drawing imaginary lines about what they can and can’t do, though even then there are occasional moments of assault and murder? Those guys? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/845 "2011-05-12T19:25:33Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > Again with the name calling:rolleyes: > I guess it makes you feel smarter to put others down. 😕 I didn’t put anyone down. I commented on Bricker’s posts only and purposely did not comment about you at all. What name calling have I done? Compare that to yours. ---
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/846 "2011-05-12T19:27:56Z")
> [@Little\_Bird](#): > > I’m fine with it. The woman’s right to not be pregnant trumps the fetus’s rights to live. Easy peasy. Also, an abortion is always easier on the woman physically than a live delivery, which is very important if she is having health issues, and she can get pregnant more quickly if it’s a problem with the fetus. So T minus one day it’s ok with you to terminate? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/847 "2011-05-12T19:30:05Z")
Actually, as an purely incidental note, I caught a few minutes of Oprah yesterday and she was interviewing Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. She described herself as a good mother, “putting the oxygen mask” over her children first, or something along those lines. Of course, this is exactly the _wrong_ thing to do, and flight attendants will routinely tell you so during pre-flight safety briefings. If the oxygen masks descend during the flight, you should absolutely fit your own mask first. If you tend your child first, you could easily pass out in the process, dooming both of you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/848 "2011-05-12T19:32:35Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Careful honey… you can pull something, stretching like that. Is this intended to refute the points I made, somehow? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/849 "2011-05-12T19:33:25Z")
> [@AlienVessels](#): > > So T minus one day it’s ok with you to terminate? Legally, sure, if I may interject. But I’m also confident in medical ethics such that a doctor won’t engage in such an action with an extremely compelling reason. Frankly, I’m okay with leaving it to the medical professionals rather than the lawmakers, and as a practical note, I expect a doctor who had a T-1 patient saying “I want an abortion” would write it off as the product of the stresses of late-term pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/850 "2011-05-12T19:37:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’ll take a stab at this, though I most assuredly do not speak for **classy**. > > I contend human life begins at conception. I reach this conclusion because any other answer is contradictory: first trimester? Then we say that at day 91 of the pregnancy, the fetus is human, but not at day 90? Not at minute 11:59, but at minute 12:00? The flaws in that seem obvious. I don’t see any flaw, here. True, we can’t pin down a precise instant when a fetus becomes human, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize a difference between a clump of fertilized cells small enough to fit in a coke spoon, and a human being. We can then pick a point towards the end of the former status, and say, “No abortions beyond this point, because this is the latest point where we can clearly differentiate between human and non-human status.” It’s no different, really, then age of consent laws, or age of majority laws. If I have sex with someone when they’re seventeen years and three hundred sixty four days old, I’m a rapist. If I wait twenty four more hours, I’m not. Is that a wholly arbitrary and meaningless distinction? Does that law invalidate the concept of consensual sex entirely? Of course not: we recognize that the exact point where a person is capable of consenting to sex (or having a beer, or driving a car, or running for office) is not a precisely definable or fixed point, and we draw the line just a little past where we can comfortably say it’s already happened. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/851 "2011-05-12T19:38:18Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Once again your point is your subjective opinion. It’s just as easy to say that considering a zygote , or embryo, a human being is absurd, and in that case, there’s real evidence to support the statement. You have very little , perhaps none. How can there be evidence to support a definition on which we do not agree? If, for example, we said that a human being must weigh a minimum of 2 pounds, then we’d have an objective standard, and we could use it to determine when humanity vested in the fetus. But since we don’t, you can hardly chide me for lack of evidence. The probative value of your evidence turns on my accepting your criteria for humanity. Which I do not. > [@](#): > > It’s also reasonable to say, it’s a human person the day it is born alive and independent of it’s mother. The day before that it’s a human fetus, at a certain stage of development, and the medical decisions should be up to the doctor and the woman. Yes, it’s reasonable. I simply don’t agree, but I absolutely acknowledge that this is a reasonable position to take. > [@](#): > > And, I’m curious, believing “fully human from conception” do you think mothers and doctors who choose abortion should be tried for murder? No, for several reasons. Under current law, of course, they acted legally. But even if abortion were made illegal, I would not agree to trying a mother for murder. I cannot believe that she made the decision to abort without believing – wrongly but sincerely – that she was taking the best possible option in front of her. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/852 "2011-05-12T19:46:29Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Is this intended to refute the points I made, somehow? Are you implying that this crap > [@](#): > > You owe a certain duty to visitors to your home, even if you didn’t invite them; a Jehovah’s Witness may sue you if you left a sharp rake hidden by leaves in the path to your door, even though you didn’t explicitly consent to his visit – and didn’t even want it. needs refuting? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![classyladyhp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@classyladyhp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/classyladyhp)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/853 "2011-05-12T19:53:34Z")
[quote=“cosmosdan, post:845, topic:580935”] 😕 I didn’t put anyone down. I commented on Bricker’s posts only and purposely did not comment about you at all. QUOTE] I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/854 "2011-05-12T19:55:13Z")
Of course, once they’re _in_ your home, you’re free to hunt them for sport. It’s in the Constitution, somewhere in the back. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/855 "2011-05-12T19:55:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, I agree that’s a difference in both degree and kind. > > Of course we do occasionally require someone to “donate” blood – to a blood alcohol test, for example, following an accusation of drunk driving, or for a paternity test prior to the advent of buccal swabs. Also, I’d argue, a difference of kind. > [@](#): > > No, a just society would not, because that society would recognize that you have no particular duty to care for that person. (Of course, I think society would regard you as admirable and noble if you did choose to donate your marrow). I think my point is made at this point–it was “we are willing to trade inconvenience to save a life”, and now there is a nuance (involving duty of care). Which, as your response to Diana shows, you are aware involves a great deal of moral calculus–there are times when one must assume a duty of care, and times when one is only burdened with such a duty when one consents (via specific action) to that person. I would note, further, that “putting a person into a situation where they require care” doesn’t create duty of care in many cases–if I throw you into a swimming pool, I’m not obligated to perform CPR on you if you start to drown (even though I might be legally liable for other things). At this point I’d hope you could agree that there’s a fairly significant degree of nuance around the idea that a pregnant woman is obligated, in general, to care for the fetus, and it’s not necessarily as simplistic as your earlier answers would have us believe. > [@DianaG](#): > > Careful honey… you can pull something, stretching like that. Why do people expect Bricker to do things other than quote the letter of the law? Why is it a stretch for Bricker to describe the law as it generally stands regarding duty-of-care? > [@classyladyhp](#): > > Aside from Bryan…(since I’m not sure what he is.)…any other people out there ok with abortion after viability. Oh, mind you, I’m okay with post-viability abortions. I just would be willing to cope with a properly crafted compromise that excluded them. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/856 "2011-05-12T19:59:04Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno what you guys want from Bricker - he’s admitted his views are axiomatic. Trying to tease out some admission just encourages him to dig in his heels, as I’m sure would be the case for any of us who hold beliefs we can’t prove. Deciding when (or if) to label a fetus surely counts as one of these. Honestly? I just like debating Bricker to find his lines. It’s relaxing, when compared to other debates–he doesn’t often resort to anything other than reasonably supported positions (that emanate from his axioms). 😃 > [@classyladyhp](#): > > So lets see can we get back on topic? I think the thread is about pro-life demonstrators. They are often classless, rude, and push the boundaries of law and good taste. Thought we’d settled that. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/857 "2011-05-12T20:04:47Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Why do people expect Bricker to do things other than quote the letter of the law? Why is it a stretch for Bricker to describe the law as it generally stands regarding duty-of-care? The specific instance mentioned is silly. Of course the JW could file suit. I could file suit against you right now, for hurting my feelings. Bored, silly people file lawsuits as a hobby, ferchrissake. That doesn’t mean that anything would come of it. As an analogy for my duty to an “uninvited, unwanted” fetus in my body, it’s beyond ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/858 "2011-05-12T20:05:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Legally, sure, if I may interject. But I’m also confident in medical ethics such that a doctor won’t engage in such an action with an extremely compelling reason. Frankly, I’m okay with leaving it to the medical professionals rather than the lawmakers, and as a practical note, I expect a doctor who had a T-1 patient saying “I want an abortion” would write it off as the product of the stresses of late-term pregnancy. And I’m confident enough in the variability of human nature to be able to find patient/doctor combos that get around that ethical checkpoint. The world often turns out differently than I would like (expect). I expect that. That’s why I’d prefer the law give guidance and extra vigilance in late term abortion decisions. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/859 "2011-05-12T20:06:36Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > How can there be evidence to support a definition on which we do not agree? > > If, for example, we said that a human being must weigh a minimum of 2 pounds, then we’d have an objective standard, and we could use it to determine when humanity vested in the fetus. > > But since we don’t, you can hardly chide me for lack of evidence. The probative value of your evidence turns on my accepting your criteria for humanity. > > Which I do not. Of course there can be evidence about things people don’t agree on. If I talk to a believer about evolution or the nature of the Bible , isn’t there evidence? The evidence I’m referring to is our current knowledge about development from conception to birth along with tradition in human society. > [@](#): > > Yes, it’s reasonable. > > I simply don’t agree, but I absolutely acknowledge that this is a reasonable position to take. Appreciated. I also appreciate that you recognize your opinion is just that. It at least leaves the door open to discussion. > [@](#): > > No, for several reasons. Under current law, of course, they acted legally. But even if abortion were made illegal, I would not agree to trying a mother for murder. I cannot believe that she made the decision to abort without believing – wrongly but sincerely – that she was taking the best possible option in front of her. And this I find to be inconsistent in the logic and incredibly frequent in people who hold your position. We have serious laws about where the lines are drawn for homicide, and “the best possible option” is not a viable defense after you’ve killed someone. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/860 "2011-05-12T20:07:29Z")
And I say if you manage to find a doctor who’ll abort (as opposed to deliver) your perfectly healthy 39 and a half week fetus, you _earned_ that abortion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=42) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=44)