# Death Warrants (Georgia Abortion Bill) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2002, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606 "2002-12-09T21:08:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/21 "2002-12-10T03:31:33Z")
there’s no such thing as a “death warrant” except in the delusional mind of a semi-creative religious nutcase trying to force his beliefs on the nation. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/22 "2002-12-10T04:58:28Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Whatever your feelings on the “human” or “personhood” status of the zygote/embryo/fetus…it **IS** alive. skin cells are alive. dandelions are alive. sperm and eggs are alive. the reason that these things are less valuable than humans is because they are not humans. ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/23 "2002-12-10T05:05:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kalt \* > \*\*there’s no such thing as a “death warrant” except in the delusional mind of a semi-creative religious nutcase trying to force his beliefs on the nation. \*\* It’s already been established that a “death warrant” is something actually used right now in some cases of euthanasia (plug-pulling) and in the criminal justice system. See **Polycarp** ’s post above, near the top. I presume he knows what he’s talking about. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/24 "2002-12-10T05:06:24Z")
I think the more immediate purpose of the bill, besides tying women up in legal red tape long enough to prevent an abortion, is to intimidate women. Assume the bill passes: how many women who would get abortions have the ability to challenge the constitutionality of it in time to get an abortion? How many women would even want to try for a death warrant, with the attendent publicity (and likely picketing by pro-lifers)? ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/25 "2002-12-10T05:33:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hansel \* > \*\*I think the more immediate purpose of the bill, besides tying women up in legal red tape long enough to prevent an abortion, is to intimidate women. Assume the bill passes: how many women who would get abortions have the ability to challenge the constitutionality of it in time to get an abortion? How many women would even want to try for a death warrant, with the attendent publicity (and likely picketing by pro-lifers)? \*\* good point. anti-abortion demonstrations could stop courtroom proceedings before they got started. when fire-bombings and assassinations aren’t unheard of, what pregnant woman, who already might have a great deal to be scared of, would go through all that? as i stated earlier, it also makes the process a lot less affordable. does anyone have any reasonable speculations on the likelihood of this passing? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/26 "2002-12-10T05:59:46Z")
And what if the judge denied the warrant? Wouldn’t that be denying the mother her civil rights? Could she sue the court? ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/27 "2002-12-10T12:35:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ramanujan \* > \*\*skin cells are alive. dandelions are alive. sperm and eggs are alive. > > the reason that these things are less valuable than humans is because they are not humans. \*\* Huh… I could have sworn you used the phrase “being no more alive” earlier. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/28 "2002-12-10T15:45:31Z")
> [@](#): > > …being no more alive than a collection of skin cells You’re broken-clock right, BD. Life is a binary state: it lives, or it doesn’t. I am no more or no less alive than a zygote, which is no more or less alive than an archaebacteria. The fact that the three things mentioned above are all alive is irrelavent. Should we start a seperate thread debating abortion, and continue discussing this law in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/29 "2002-12-10T17:15:40Z")
Huh. How 'bout that? Maybe they could combine it with that proposed law to feature the names/photos of women who don’t know who impregnated them in newspapers. I agree with those of you who believe it’s just more red tape. I know we’re trying to stay on-topic (and everyone’s doing a remarkable job), but I can’t resist posting a delightful opinion column from The Onion, called “I’m Totally Psyched about this Abortion!”: [http://www.theonion.com/onion3516/psyched\_about\_abortion.html](http://www.theonion.com/onion3516/psyched_about_abortion.html) ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/30 "2002-12-10T18:03:58Z")
In addition to **Monty’s** astute observation, this is an underhanded attempt at rubbing a woman’s nose in her own abortion, so to speak. Rep. Franklin is asking the woman (who already has enough to do wrestling with her own conscience) to acknowledge that she is ordering the murder or her unborn child, and asking the doctor to be the instrument of its death. In short, Franklin wants to make it sound as ugly and as much like an execution as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/31 "2002-12-10T21:42:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > \*\*You’re broken-clock right, BD. Life is a binary state: it lives, or it doesn’t. I am no more or no less alive than a zygote, which is no more or less alive than an archaebacteria. The fact that the three things mentioned above are all alive is irrelavent. > > Should we start a seperate thread debating abortion, and continue discussing this law in this thread? \*\* i agree that this probably isn’t the right place to talk about this. then again i don’t have much more to say on the issue, except to reiterate that i said “no more alive _than_ a collection of skin cells.” of course life is a binary property, i never disputed that. i said that the cells that make us up are alive, and we haven’t nearly as much concern for them as we do for these few cells inside the body of someone who isn’t any of us. if you wish to dispute that, and start another thread on the topic, please feel free to link me to it. ---
**Author:** ![luckyjw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e9bcb4/32.png) [@luckyjw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luckyjw)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/32 "2002-12-11T03:03:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\*Political posturing. > "It’s obvious that the proposed law is intended to postpone a woman’s abortion until after her pregnancy has come to term, or at least until after the first trimester has passed. (A trial within thirty days? Ha. An appeal completed within a couple of months after that? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Have you seen the clogged dockets of Georgia’s courts?) > > And since there’s no way a petition for a death warrant could be fully litigated within three months, the proposed law would have the practical effect of blocking the right of a woman within the first trimester to abort her fetus (that right being delineated by the Supreme Court of the US in Roe v. Wade). _Ergo_, the law would be unconstitutional. \*\* However… what if after several rounds of litigation the woman won her case, only it had taken several months to complete and she had given birth. Would this give the mother the right to kill the child? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-warrants-georgia-abortion-bill/141606/33 "2002-12-11T03:05:46Z")
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