Does Abortion Contradict the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

I don’t see how that is the case. Someone could take an item from my house for their own without me being involved in the slightest; that doesn’t mean that their lacking my permission to do so is irrelevant. That people could create a genetic child of mine without my participation or agreement in any way doesn’t mean they haven’t necessarily done something wrong, and that my permission would not have changed matters.

Maybe we could arrest them for potential child abuse.

And the twin business?

Not a strawman at all. Our laws protecting children don’t only protect them from certain harm, only potential harm. When I was a kid car seats were not yet invented, and I survived, yet we require them today. As for specific laws, that would depend on science, and the level of risk involved. Glass of wine, sure, bottle of Scotch, maybe not.

In any case, given that you support at least some laws restricting what a mother can do while pregnant, how much money would you spend to stop the mass deaths of innocent young embryos who don’t make it? Sure some may have genetic problems, but they are still potential humans anyway, right?

At the risk of a hijack, it occurs to me that anyone who is pro-life should support some sort of health care reform which would guarantee excellent prenatal care and counseling for all pregnant women. While they are off picketing Planned Parenthood, how many women are putting their wanted fetuses at risk by not going to the doctor because they can’t afford it? That is something both sides of this issue should be able to agree on.

Um, hasn’t Curtis LeMay supported this exact position in this very thread? That would make it rather less of a strawman…

It’s a flawed example. Both twins have a claim to their dna.

Again, I’m not saying it is necessarily illegal, I’m saying it should be. Are you comfortable if a swimwear company takes a Michael Phelps blood sample and pays women to have the next generation of record breakers?

Should it be legal to clone celebrities? What if parents want to raise a Brad Pitt clone? Does he have a right to safeguard his dna like he as a right to control the use of his image?

Strawmen. How do you know if every pro-life people support or don’t support welfare programs?

Well, let’s put it another way.

If a man happens to leave a DNA sample lying around–say, inside a woman’s vagina, for example–and that DNA sample happens to fertilize an egg and the egg grows into a baby, he will become a parent to a child without his consent.

I suppose we can argue that carelessly leaving a DNA sample in a place where it might be misused can be construed as implied consent to parenthood. But even if you take affirmative steps to protect that DNA sample–like using a condom–it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether you consented or what steps you took to prevent that baby, if a baby results, you are on the hook for that baby.

So in the future, if you leave skin or hair samples around, we can easily imagine someone creating a baby from those, then using genetic testing to prove that you’re the father, and then suing you for child support.

However, this probably won’t happen, because it would take a lot of affirmative steps on the part of the people who created the child. Even today we don’t declare a sperm donor or egg donor the legal parent of a child, we don’t declare a surrogate mother the legal parent of a child.

It seems to me the legal parent of the child would be the person who called the fertility clinic and asked them to create a child from the DNA samples, and the fertility clinic should have a legal obligation to trace the origin of the DNA samples and make sure the person asking for the child has a right to use them. Regulation of fertility clinics is the way to protect people from unauthorized cloning. Sure, there will be the occasional bootleg outlaw offshore fertility clinic that will do anything you want if you have enough money, but the vast majority will obey the law.

That’s simply not true. Most states have criminal child endangerment laws, and even allow the removal of children from homes if there is sufficient potential risk.

Go figure. We got smarter.

That’s simply obtuse. Science helps us quantify or measure the level of “risk” involved. Your first point was a strawman argument from my points, nothing more.

Let’s see if I can try this particular debate style. Some potential human life have genetic problems, so we should terminate them, right?

Yuck. Don’t like that style of debate at all. I leave it to you.

Means the question of to what extent we own our own DNA is made yet more tricky, which is not to say it’s an easy one even if we ignore the problem. I would hazard a guess that the answer would be similar to if someone stole your DNA and presented a child as a fait accomplit; ownership of DNA is something that can, at the least, be in question, whereas ownership of a person isn’t at all. I’d tend to imagine that the dividing line would be affected by abortion law.

Either way, that there exists an acceptable means for there to be another person with my DNA who may use it for what they would like doesn’t mean that any person may use my DNA for what they like and it be acceptable. A person whom i’ve given a check to may take money out of my bank, in a specified amount. That doesn’t mean that it is acceptable for anyone to do so, or acceptable to take any amount. Having one example of a thing be acceptable doesn’t mean that all examples of that thing are.

If you know of an American congressman who embraces both a pro-life and pro-welfare platform, please let us know.

Seriously, I’m prepared to believe such congressmen exist.

I think he’s more talking about non-congressman people who give a few hundred (or a few bucks) to some private charity which may, or may not, do anything to help unwed mothers or unwanted children in volumes proportionate to what banning abortion causes, rather than saying that people actually have the power to do something, are.

Well, just as I figure interfering with a person’s decision whether or not to stay pregnant is an egregious intrusion, I wouldn’t dream of trying to hassle people who spend their time and discretionary income on causes that make them feel good.

However, the people who may be influenced and who have the actual power to effect change, i.e. congress, are fair game. I’m prepared to buy that some significant percentage of Americans (indeed, any country’s citizens) are determinedly ignorant about the ramifications of what they propose as a moral solution to a perceived problem. In a free society, it’s necessary to tolerate their simple-minded and short-sighted calls of “There oughta be a law!” The concern is someone who can actually make such a law might listen.

It hardly matters if “every” pro-birther opposes welfare or not. What matters is that they overwhelmingly show a lack of concern or outright malice towards the very children they want to force into the world. The fact that Kathy in Kentucky disagrees doesn’t change the fact that the movement as a whole DOESN’T care about the welfare of children.

I do find it interesting that more and more the right wing finds it necessary to defend itself with the fallacy that you can’t criticize an evil movement if in theory somewhere, somehow, a single person in it might not be evil.

There’s another fallacy: if we can characterize the whole movement as evil, then we don’t need to examine or defend any specifics. That’s the ad hominem fallacy. Of what relevance is it to say, “The whole movement is evil?” The question to be answered is: the movement supports actions A, B, and C: are THEY evil?

You’ve gotten things turned around a bit. First, I was saying that laws do exist to protect children from potential harm. Car seat laws are a good example - and I support them.

Nature itself takes care of genetic problems in fetuses by causing a miscarriage. So let me make this a bit clearer.

  1. Laws to protect children from potential harm exist, and are constitutional. They are also desirable, and get lots of support.

  2. Fetuses are children. (I don’t agree with this, but this is the pro-life position.)

  3. Given 1 and 2, laws to protect fetuses from potential harm should be desirable also.

  4. Excessive use of alcohol may harm a fetus. Smoking and drugs may harm a fetus. Improper diet may harm a fetus.

  5. Laws to protect the fetus from potential harm by prohibiting expectant mothers from doing this things are advisable.

We can get into the need to prevent the mass death of fetus children from miscarriage later.

ETA: Since you don’t seem to get subtle arguments, I’d better add that since I don’t believe fetuses are children, and I do believe in the right to privacy, this argument doesn’t work for me because the falsity of premise 2. Education, good. Throwing expectant mothers into jail for drinking, bad.

It’s not a fallacy, it’s a practical position. I don’t need to know every individual KKK member or Nazi or Khmer Rouge member to know that the movement as a whole is evil and should be stopped. To know that they will always do harm. And yes, I do think it’s fair to compare the anti-abortion movement to the KKK ( or rather, white supremacy in general ); they are at base both hate groups.

By all means.

sigh. Did you even read my post? I don’t think fetuses are “children” or “people”. They are certainly potential human life and worth protecting, but if you still working under this misapprehension now after I’ve explained it twice before, I fear I am wasting my time.

Ahhhh, a little snark. Coming from you, that’s just really … cute. When you get around to actually reading and understanding what I’ve said, let me know. Because these misapprehensions you labor under make it difficult to meaningfully respond to you.

I had started a thread about the same hypothetical a while ago, but it didn’t really stick.