Is it OK for the woman to torture her newborn before she kills her, so long as she hasn’t cut the cord? May she also invite her friends over to join in? After all, a nine-month fetus is a blank slate until mother chooses to cut the umbilical cord.
I agree with this. You have my vote.
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Is it OK for the woman to torture her newborn before she kills her, so long as she hasn’t cut the cord? May she also invite her friends over to join in? After all, a nine-month fetus is a blank slate until mother chooses to cut the umbilical cord.
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You’re seriously envisioning an epidemic of women giving birth and then tormenting the newborn while the cord is still attached, perhaps stabbing the baby with scissors and crushing her little ankles with pliers and stuff like that?
But they’d do all this while the umbilical cord was intact so as to avoid breaking the law, being rational law-abiding sadistic freakazoids and all that? So if it weren’t legal they’d sigh and take their newborn home and feed her and tuck her in because the law doesn’t permit her to act on her Joel Steinberg fantasies?
I’m doubtful that a “becomes a person when the cord is cut” law would result in such nightmare scenarios occurring all over the country, but if evidence proved me wrong, I admit that would make me reconsider the wisdom of the policy.
Whether or not the fetus/baby/lump of cells is unimportant to my view on abortion, which is this: any person has the right to remove anything or anyone from inside their body if they want it out, for any reason at all, and at any time. And that’s it. It doesn’t matter if I think the 8 month old fetus is a person- it’s a person inside another’s body, and she has the right to evict if she so chooses.
And even if the thought of killing 8 month old babies bothers me (and it does!), I don’t worry to much about it because of this- most women are decent and thoughtful people, and I believe a miniscule number would make an unreasoned decision to end their pregnancy late-term. In addition, I believe that a woman determined to end her pregnancy will do so regardless of abortion laws.
I’m envisioning no such thing. I was simply fascinated by your remarks about panini presses and “blank slates” and wanted to see how far you would take it.
If I understood you correctly (and forgive me if I got this wrong), you’d have no difficulty with the idea that a woman could simply wait to give birth to a full-term newborn and then kill the child before the umbilical cord is cut. Is your position that the child does not have a right to life if her mother wants to kill her, but does have a right not to be tortured? If so, why can’t we kill anyone who is even temporarily dependent on us, so long as we don’t torture the person?
Its not silly but I’ll grant you that its disgusting. Thing is, so what if its disgusting? Be disgusted. Lots of things disgust me and I don’t want to make them illegal.
And you want to talk about some objective line on a subject that’s full of subjectiveness. You don’t seem to realize that there is NO objective line, anywhere we make the cutoff is going to be arbitrary to somebody, so for me personally, I try to see the point of the law and what we’re trying to protect. Abortion is for the mother, its 100% about her body and her rights, so I feel that the more protection we give to her, the more accurately we will be in adhering to the law and its purpose
I would advise against that because it would negatively affect the mother and anyone who has to witness that, but I wouldn’t make it illegal. Plus, this won’t happen so while its fun to think about, there shouldn’t be actual laws made preventing something that doesn’t happen
Yes to the first sentence.
To the second, I believe the fetus, as long as its part of the mother through the connected cord, has no right to anything. It doesn’t mean its not demented for her to torture it.
To the last sentence, I fully support suicide. I don’t even think you need a reason. Just be 18 and if you want to kill yourself, it should be ok. As for why you can’t kill others, its because of self-preservation: you don’t want people to have to ability to kill you, so you prevent them from doing it to others.
I would advise against that because it would negatively affect the mother and anyone who has to witness that, but I wouldn’t make it illegal. Plus, this won’t happen so while its fun to think about, there shouldn’t be actual laws made preventing something that doesn’t happen
People torture their children after the umbilical cord is cut far too often (and it is clearly illegal to do so), why is it you are sure that it would never happen under your proposed scheme which would make it legal to do so?
I guess it simplifies matters to simply proclaim that abortion is “for the mother” and therefore eliminate the pesky little questions about the right of a young human being to live.
It should be illegal when it results in the involuntary violation of someone’s rights.
There are plenty of objective lines (which the vast majority of pro-choicers adhere to) such as the start of detectable brain wave activity in the fetus.
No one has the right to occupy space in another person’s body against their wishes.
How often does this happen?
For the same reason why I would be against a law stating Martian technology should be turned over to the police, I would be against a useless law such as this
So don’t mention its disgusting. The only reason you would is to try to garner emotional sympathy. Since I don’t consider the fetus to be something that deserves rights, I would reject your reasoning
That’s not objective at all, unless your definition of objective is different. We’re not talking about some factual line in which arbitrary criteria X is achieved, you can set that “objective” line at conception, at birth, at “fetal pain”, at viability, or whatever. We are talking about the objective line in which something becomes human. There is no such line
I think the brightest, most objective, least rights violating “line” is simple: take it out and see if it lives with the kind of care that someone who isn’t the mother can provide. If it lives, it has rights. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Luckily, we’ve got the technology and trained people who can make a pretty good guess at whether it will live before we remove it. And we call that guess “viability”.
YogSosoth, I do not have numbers handy as to how often mothers versus fathers or stepfathers are the perpetrators, but abuse and maltreatment of infants is sadly not rare. Apparently for children aged less than a week neglect is more common than abuse among the cases substantiated by child protection agencies:
Nonfatal Maltreatment
of Infants — United States,
October 2005–September 2006
During October 2005–September 2006 (federal fiscal
year 2006), approximately 905,000 U.S. children were victims
of maltreatment that was substantiated by state and
local child protective services (CPS) agencies (1).* Approximately
19% of child maltreatment fatalities occurred among
infants (i.e., persons aged <1 year) (1), and homicide statistics
suggest that fatality risk might be greatest in the
first week of life (2). However, the risk for nonfatal maltreatment
among infants has not been examined previously
at the national level. To determine the extent of nonfatal
infant maltreatment in the United States, CDC and the
federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
analyzed data collected in fiscal year 2006 (the most
recent data available) from the National Child Abuse and
Neglect Data System (NCANDS). This report summarizes
the results of that analysis, which indicated that, in fiscal
year 2006, a total of 91,278 infants aged <1 year (rate:
23.2 per 1,000 population) experienced nonfatal maltreatment,
including 29,881 (32.7%) who were aged <1 week.
Neglect was the maltreatment category cited for 68.5% of
infants aged <1 week, but NCANDS data did not permit
further characterization of the nature of this neglect.
Developing effective measures to prevent maltreatment of
infants aged <1 week will require more detailed characterization
of neglect in this age group.
NCANDS is a national data collection and analysis system
created in response to the federal Child Abuse Prevention
and Treatment Act.† Data have been collected annually
from states and reported since 1993. States submit caselevel
data as child-specific records for each report of alleged
child maltreatment for which a completed investigation or
assessment by a CPS agency has been made during the
reporting period. Individual CPS agencies are responsible
for determining the type of maltreatment and outcome of
the maltreatment investigation based on state and federal
laws. However, no standardized definitions of maltreatment
are used consistently by all states; therefore, each state maps
its own classification of maltreatment onto NCANDS
- Substantiated maltreatment is defined as maltreatment by a parent or other
caregiver deemed to have occurred after thorough investigation by a qualified staff
member from a CPS agency with jurisdiction over the geographic area in which
the maltreatment took place. Additional information is available at http://
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm05/index.htm.
Love this post.
Yeah, I know it’s c[COLOR=“MediumTurquoise”]R[/COLOR][COLOR=“YellowGreen”]a[/COLOR]Zy and all, but I trust women to not become psycopaths because they have the ability to make their own reproductive decisions. It stems from my belief that women are capable people, and generally try to make good choices for themselves and their families. Radical, I know. :rolleyes:
Women who want to torture kids exist. They are a minority, and they are criminals. I don’t think there’s any women out there who really want to torture babies, but don’t, because it’s against the law. Do you?
Actually, that wasn’t really the point, as I explained above. The point is that if the “fetus” (i.e. a child who has been delivered but is still attached to the placenta via umbilical cord) can be killed (Panini press or no) because she is “a blank slate” and a non-person until the cord is cut, then logically she can also be tortured.
In other words, why is it wrong to torture such a non=person but OK to kill her?
Well, since we are on the subject of “life begins after the mother decides she wants her baby to live”, would you be opposed to giving birth, not cutting the cord, and harvesting the organs. I see that as a lot more likely than torturing a newborn still attached to the cord.
This statement is arbitrary and the rebuffal well known : “You can shot an intruder because you found him in your house, but you can’t shot someone you invited over because you found him in your house”.
But you can shot someone you invited over if they refuse to leave and start drinking your bodily fluids.
When you invite someone over for a party and an uninvited guest crashes the same party and won’t leave, you can kick them out.
This works, but is awkward, because of the severe health issues that face ordinary prematurely-born babies. It condemns the kid to a lifetime of nasty health problems. (Or at least a much higher likelihood.)
This is why many consider the gestational epoch of viability to be a dividing line, at which point the interests of the state overwhelm the interests of the individual, and the pregnancy can morally and legally be compelled to continue.
It’s a compromise, but it saves a lot of childhood pain from those who would be born prematurely.
Meanwhile, the other side has to compromise a bit, also. To begin with, would they accept legalized abortion up to the epoch of viability? After that, would they cut it out with mandatory counseling, mandatory ultrasounds, a ban on doctors giving advice, a ban on any government-run hospital providing abortions, etc.?
Compromise requires both sides to give a bit. Any fucking chance?
That would certainly resolve the question if only the child had chosen to implant itself in the mother’s body, and if the eviction didn’t involve killing the child.
Once again, that argument only works if you consider the implanted fertilized egg to be a child. Do you have any arguments to convince someone who doesn’t consider the implanted fertilized egg to be a child? If not, all you are doing is preaching to the already converted, and not to those you are trying to convince.