The Don Johnson, aka “the Tiny Violin” is indeed an old chestnut at this point, too easily countered with the “but she invited him in!” chestnut.
More persuasive to me (not that I needed any persuading, but it seems harder to counter) is one that I first heard on this board, and that’s the “Greater Rights” argument.
My daughter is a person whom I invited into my body, and into my life, and she’s now 8 years old. If she developed a need for a kidney transplant, and I were a perfect match for her, I cannot be compelled to give her one of my kidneys. If I were the only person on earth who could ever be a match for her, I cannot be compelled to give her one of my kidneys. If it were known that in 9 months another perfect kidney would be available to her, but she wouldn’t survive without my kidney for that long, I cannot be compelled to give her one of my kidneys. If she could use my kidney for just 9 months while waiting for an artificial kidney to be perfected, and then give my kidney back, I still cannot be compelled to give her one of my kidneys.
My kidneys are mine. They do not belong to my daughter. I may chose to give her a kidney (and of course, in reality, I personally would do this.) But I may also chose to not give her a kidney, and let her die. We do not have, and no one has seriously suggested we have, a law on the books mandating that I donate a kidney or any other part of my body to my 8 year old daughter.
So how is it legal to mandate that I must donate a kidney (and the other one, and my lungs and my digestive system and my hormones and my uterus and my bladder and every other organ in my body) to her unborn brother? I’m allowed to let my living daughter die, but not my unborn son*? That’s giving him not the same state protected rights as a born child, but GREATER rights than a born child.
That’s some weird logic there.
*My very, very rhetorical unborn son. This is not an announcement.
Hell, the government can’t even compel the use of your organs after you’re dead and don’t need then any more. Even if you’ve agreed to the use of your organs, your family can veto that when you are dead. I’d say that fact speaks volumes about how seriously the United States takes bodily autonomy.
And people (real actual people, not “unborn” people, whatever the hell that is) die every day because of a lack of organs. There is real, obvious, quantifiable harm being done in the name of bodily autonomy, and we still uphold it as a fundamental right.
Unless it’s women who’ve had sex. Then all bets are off.
I would LOVE if one of the forced birthers could explain why it’s ok to have walking talking citizens die because of a lack of donated organs, especially considering that many of these same conservatives are the type to oppose making organ donation opt-out rather than opt-in, but the loss of an unwanted clump of cells is a fucking holocaust. :rolleyes: The whole thing makes it real hard to believe that it isn’t about controlling women.
The analogy certainly seems closer to the mark than the Don Johnson scenario, but fails to address the real questions as I see them.
If you fail to donate a kidney, you are not killing your child, though it may be that you have the intent of allowing the child to die.
Continuing a healthy pregnancy is not like donating a kidney; the child is not taking organs from your body but is merely dependent on them for nutrition, hydration, shelter and possibly medical care until she is old enough to be born.
Obviously if you withhold those things from your child after she is born, you are committing a crime and I think it is universally acknowledged that law is just. Similarly, if you take an action that is intended to kill a child already born, you have broken what we all recognize as a just law.
Abortion is unquestionably an action intended to kill the unborn child, and whether that child has a right to live that trumps the mother’s right to not be pregnant anymore is not resolved by comparing it to organ donation.
By the way, though, if you refuse to allow a kidney donated by another person or taken from a cadaver to be implanted in your child knowing the child will die without it, then the chances are that your child’s doctors will take the matter to court and the court will overrule your decision. You are not allowed to let your child die because you don’t want her to have clearly needed medical care to prevent it, nor should you be.
Your setting up a false standard, I don’t believe in the US there is a right to suicide or to be killed, I don’t believe there is a general right to be assaulted. If there was absolute bodily autonomy then you would have those rights.
The pro-life lobby always seemed like a bunch of barbarians to me, but to to be honest when I read some of the comments here it seems that at least some in the pro-choice lobby are just as bad, if not worse (sorry killing new born babies so someone doesn’t have to pay for them, whatever the circumstances of their birth, is not something you’re ever going to persuade me is anything other than completely despicable).
If I fail to continue a pregnancy, I’m not killing my child, though it may be that I have the intent of allowing the child to die. Very few methods of legal abortion kill the fetus outright; rather they make the uterus an inhospitable place and the fetus dies because it can’t survive on its own (the only one that does kill the fetus is a D&X, which is a very small percentage of abortions and largely illegal in most places now anyhow.) And, to bring it back to the topic of the thread: I agree that if the abortion does *not *result in the death of the fetus, the fetus should receive proper medical care, but that it needn’t be provided by the mother.
Nope. I have the right to give my child to the State, or to another person to provide these things if I don’t want to. I may, depending on the age of the child, have to pay money for her support until someone else adopts her, but I do not have to provide those things myself. I have to follow specific procedures to give up my obligation, of course, but I can do it, and for the first week, it’s as simple as dropping her off at the fire station, hospital or other Safe Haven - and then I don’t even have to pay child support.
Irrelevant. We’re not talking about other people’s kidneys, only the mother’s body. This would only be relevant if we removed fetuses and implanted them in other people.
That’s the heart of it, really. Again we go back to: can someone who isn’t the mother provide the care?
*If I fail to continue a pregnancy, I’m not killing my child, though it may be that I have the intent of allowing the child to die. Very few methods of legal abortion kill the fetus outright; rather they make the uterus an inhospitable place and the fetus dies because it can’t survive on its own (the only one that does kill the fetus is a D&X, which is a very small percentage of abortions and largely illegal in most places now anyhow.) *
It’s not reasonable to suggest that any abortion procedure (unless the child is already dead) is not actively killing the child. If I set your house on fire when you are locked inside it, have I killed you or just made your house an inhospitable place so you die? Nope. I have the right to give my child to the State, or to another person to provide these things if I don’t want to. I may, depending on the age of the child, have to pay money for her support until someone else adopts her, but I do not have to provide those things myself. I have to follow specific procedures to give up my obligation, of course, but I can do it, and for the first week, it’s as simple as dropping her off at the fire station, hospital or other Safe Haven - and then I don’t even have to pay child support.
I’m not sure I see your point. If you don’t give up your child to the state (and believe me that is not an easy thing to accomplish) or avail yourself of a Safe Haven option, but fail to provide the child with the necessities of life, that is a crime and it should be. If you mean that the unborn child has no right to live because the mother does not have those options until the child is born, then I disagree and honestly don’t see how that changes the equation.
Irrelevant. We’re not talking about other people’s kidneys, only the mother’s body. This would only be relevant if we removed fetuses and implanted them in other people.
I agree, it’s not really relevant, that’s why I said by the way. But you did say the law permits you to allow your born child to die (and that you find that inconsistent with prohibiting killing an unborn child). It isn’t actually true that you can allow your child to die for lack of medical care that will save the child’s life, ergo there’s no inconsistency there.
That was my idea. The point of using a panini press was twofold: to elicit disgust in the idea while at the same time pointing out that disgust is a poor justification for logical reasoning.
I also think that there is absolutely no danger of women callously dangling their newborns by their cords and sticking it with needles. The fact that some people think that’s a realistic possibility is offensive, and shows how wide the divide between what some pro-lifers think of the other side. What I suggest will never happen, women simply aren’t going to do that. But you know what WILL be done and what has been done? Pro-lifers using made up terms like “fetal pain” or exaggerating the worse and rarest abuses of legalized abortion and presenting them as a trend and denying abortions through that method. This has happened already so let’s debate on what has happened instead of what will never happen.
That’s why I am completely against any law that gives full rights to the unborn that has survived an abortion. They’re not people enough to have rights and should not, they are like organs in a person’s body subject to that person’s whims. If the woman wants it destroyed, it should be.
It’s always good to enlighten a baby killer.
The answer is: it’s not OK.
I’m 100% for making organ donation opt-out and, even more, I’m 100% in favour of making it impossible for anyone to override consent (tacit for opt-out or expressed for opt-in) for organ donation.
I’m called a “forced birther” like I want the ensalvement of people and I see that’s OK for you as a moderator (please don’t tell me that I didn’t report it, you can see it in the post just above).
You clearly understand the meaning of “baby killer” in the context of this thread but have chosen not to use it.
Since abortion kills a baby the monicker may be abrupt yet still accurate.
I’m not being called a “forced birther” because I actually imprison women, chain them to beds and restrain them until birth but because I supposedly want it to happen.
Since abortion kills babies, calling a person who favours such a procedure - without actually participating in it - a baby killer is exactly the same.
To avoid such harsh phrases debates usually go for the useful (albeit not without problems) “pro-choice” and “pro-life”
Can you recommend a suitable phrase? Or is it trial-and-error?
I shall not use that phrase and try to find one that touches, yet not crosses the line.
Maybe “forced interrupterer of pre natal human life” is OK?
“Favorer of forced stoppage of life processes of the genetically unique individual developing inside a woman’s uterus”?
Agreed, even to the parenthetical caveat. These are terms that the two sides can accept for themselves.
If a guy prefers to be called “Richard,” it’s bad form to call him “Dick.” (And vice versa.)
I’d like this to extend to the word “baby” in the abortion discussion. You can say, “In my opinion, it’s a baby,” and that’s valid. That is your opinion. You can’t say, “It is a baby,” because that is not agreed to. That isn’t our opinion. That’s the issue in dispute.
I don’t believe that to be the case. Calling someone a murderer is accusing them of an illegal act. Calling someone a killer merely accuses them of having killed.
That is not necessarily what is in dispute. I’m fine with calling it a baby. The fetus is a baby. I don’t believe that the baby’s right to life overrides the mother’s right to evict the baby from her uterus. I also believe that the decision on the best way to accomplish that eviction is best left to the mother and her doctor.
That being said, once born, the baby is no longer in the mother’s body and so that set of circumstances no longer applies. If the child is killed at that point, I would expect an investigation and prosecution under the same laws that would apply if it was a 14 year old, 22 year old or 110year old that was dead.
Early in the thread it was noticed that if it was not illegal already then no murder prosecution would had been possible for the unethical guys that did so. The problem is that every time I hear about new laws that supposedly will take care of that the details more often than not do not stop just on banning the obvious criminal intent of some bastard doctors.
The laws do add more restrictions and adding language that in essence give person-hood to the fetus, a run around to pass that item that was rejected on many states, other restrictions makes it more likely that when the life or health of the mother is at stake or the fetus is not viable that we will get more cases like Savita Halappanavar in Ireland.
And this is simply because the laws are set to discourage the procedure even when is needed, IMHO doctors that before had a reason to do it will be less willing to do so under legal threat.
Actually, I agree that “forced birther” is not appropriate.
I missed it because “baby killer” was such a lightning rod, in and of itself.
I do not find “forced birther” to have the same weight of insult as “baby killer,” but I agree that it is out of place in this discussion and if it is used, again, it will also receive a Warning.
