I can’t respond to your post until we agree on what it means. Please demonstrate that there is a difference between applying a set of principles, and applying the plain sense of a text.
Regards,
Shodan
Somehow I don’t think that either. I think she thinks she terminated a life. What exactly is your point? Because it appears to be “I know one person who does believe that abortion is terminating life. Now she regrets doing it.”
I would like to explain how this refutes anything I just said.
I mean, I’d like you to explain. :smack:
In fact, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, I expect it will be the Democrats putting forth an anti-abortion law just to force Republicans to have to pick sides.
That’s genius, especially if you can get a Dem with no hope of a congressional future to do it.
- I wonder if casinos would no longer allow pregnant women on the floor. (Can’t have a minor stopping on the floor, after all, even if it is in the company of a parent.*
I’d never thought of this before, but that’s true. I believe, for instance, that Texas has something written into it’s laws that refer to fetuses’ as “persons” in regards to murder (insofar as if someone murders a pregnant mother). I that same case, if a casino opened wouldn’t that be illegal then to have the pregnant woman there?
This is one of the reasons why, as I’ve said before, I’m always skeptical about claims for “strict constructionism” or “original intent”. Strict constructionism, ISTM, is a lot like Biblical literalism: it’s always strict on some points and loose on others, depending on the individual ideas of whoever happens to be professing it.
Amen.
And, btw, if we do end up reverting Abortion laws back to States, can we also revert drug laws to them? Maybe revert alcohol laws back too without the constant threat of witholding highway funding?
I’d love to see a federalist style re-implemented and the US congress stay the hell ouf ot State’s business.
With all due respect to your acquaintance, her feelings of guilt and regret have nothing to do with the point at hand. If I know a woman who has had an abortion with no regrets, does that suddenly mean abortion is hunky-dunky?
I’m just relaying a purely anecdotal account of someone I know who’s had an abortion. I get the feeling it’s the big regret of her life. It would never even occur to me to try and make her feel better by saying, “Well, it was just an unviable tissue mass, you know.” I’m not trying to fan any flames here.
But I do notice this: nobody seems able to tell me when exactly a life begins. Therefore, my question to pro-choicers (and I am one, remember) is this: would you at least admit it’s possible that life begins at conception and that an abortion is indeed ending a human life? I mean, if you know that life begins after two weeks, or a month, or four months, please convince me. I admit I don’t know…but it seems to me that conception is the most likely time when a life begins.
Not at all. I don’t disagree with you, I mean. I was simply making a point with an anecdote. I wasn’t trying to use it as support for any argument.
Anything’s possible. It’s possible that we’re all trapped in the Matrix. But realistically, I’m not about to argue morals or public policy based on that assumption.
At the moment of conception the zygote is a single-celled organism, not even implanted in the uterine lining, no nervous system, no circulatory system, nothing that distinguishes a fully-realized human from any other organism on Earth larger than a virus except a certain sequence of nucleic acids. I will happily accept that, say, abortion in the third trimester ends a human life, and I will happily admit that there’s a giant area of “I don’t know” before that. I don’t know where the bright line is drawn, or even if there is a bright line. But I will not accept that a single-celled zygote is a human being worthy of protection under the law.
If I were to argue that life begins before conception, based on the obvious motility of sperm, shouldn’t we err on the side of life and ban masturbation? I mean just look at the little buggers, they are intent on swimming through the female plumbing in search of ova; if thats not life, what is? Would you at least admit it’s possible that life begins in the testicle and that masturbation is indeed ending a human life? Aren’t you arbitrarily placing the goalposts at conception?
The former is possible, and the latter is not.
That is, the meaning of a text, especially one as concise and broadly applicable as the US Constitution, always has to be interpreted according to some set of interpretative principles. What you (or anyone else) call “the plain sense of a text” always means the sense of the text as interpreted by you.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t ever reach any agreement about how the text should be interpreted. But it does mean that we have to recognize that we’re all to some extent “reading things into” the text according to our own ideas of how to interpret it. Nobody gets to say “Those other guys are interpreting the text according to their own principles, but I’m merely stating its plain, strict meaning.”
You do me a disservice - I have never suggested anything of the sort. Theism is a logically valid philosophy which I happen not to share. I ridicule only the position that two daughter nucleui after meiosis should be treated differently under law than a separate sperm and egg (both, of course, being “human life” from a biological perspective). I say nothing of those who hold it.
The point that I and others have been trying to make here is precisely that nobody can tell you “when exactly a life begins”, because it’s arbitrary. People having sex are alive, sperm and ovum cells are alive, a zygote is alive, a fetus and a baby are alive. There is no clear biological, medical, legal, or cultural rule that we can apply to tell us exactly where in the process of development, from sperm+ovum to baby, we have to say “There, that’s the precise beginning of a new individual human life”.
Yes, of course I would accept that some people choose to define that starting-point as “the moment of conception” (although that in itself is a vague term that doesn’t indicate exactly what step in the process of fertilization is to be considered as “the moment”). And of course I would agree that people who define the starting-point of life in that way should not have abortions. (And like you, I would never try to persuade somebody who did have an abortion in spite of that conviction, and now feels bad about it, that she shouldn’t mind because it wasn’t “really” a human life.)
The question of how to identify the exact moment when “human life” begins is a matter of personal conviction. And people need to make their reproductive choices in accordance with their own convictions (or they could wind up doing something that they later regret, like your friend).
But the point of abortion law is to decide how we as a society should define the start of human life in a way that can be applied legally and practically. At present, ISTM that we have a reasonable, if somewhat vague and arbitrary, approach that harmonizes fairly well with the actual process of fetal development. We consider that a cell/zygote/embryo/fetus/baby sort of grows into legal personhood in the same way that it grows biologically. So in the early stages of pregnancy, a woman’s right to have an abortion is considered to outweigh the need to protect the life of the embryo/fetus, while in the late stages it’s the other way around.
Anybody who wants to legally define “the moment of conception” as implying full human and legal personhood needs to think very carefully about what that would entail. There would be a lot more consequences than simply outlawing all abortion.
Do we really want all miscarriages to have to be reported to the authorities and issued death certificates? Do we really want parents to be required to fill out official “conception certificates” identifying a zygote as a legal individual as soon as it’s conceived? Do we want police investigating evidence of a woman’s menstrual periods on the basis of an anonymous tip that she might have terminated a pregnancy, the same way police follow up anonymous tips about other potential murders? Do you really think people would just “accept the new situation and deal with it” in these matters, as you blithely assume they would accept a ban on abortion?
It seems to me you are trying to have it both ways.
Earlier you dismissed my idea of basing Constitutional law on what the actual text says as invalid, because it is not a “objective, universal standard”. Now you are suggesting that we can agree on how the Constitution should be interpreted if we agree on principles.
What principles can we be absolutely certain mean what they say? Especially in light of your contention that it cannot be determined what a sentence in the Constitution means? And doubly especially, how can this be used to put some kind of limits on SCOTUS such that they won’t violate the agreed-on principles?
Look, suppose we all come to agree on abortion as a basic right. We thus convene a Constitutional convention, and pass an amendment to the Constitution that reads:
[quote=An Amendment to Settle the Abortion Issue Once and for All]
[ol][li]Abortion is a basic human right. No woman shall be denied the right to terminate a pregnancy for any reason she chooses during the first two trimesters of her pregnancy.[*]Congress shall enforce this right by appropriate legislation.[/ol][/li][/quote]
And it is duly ratified.
The morning after ratification, Chief Justice Roberts issues a statement that says, “This amendment shall be interpreted as saying, abortion is illegal in the United States except in cases of rape or incest. This ruling is based on the Interstate Commerce clause”.
If I object that this is directly opposite to what the text states, and a clear violation of the intent of the framers of the amendment, will you then argue that this is merely my interpretation of the amendment, and that Justice Roberts ruling is perfectly licit?
You seem to be denying that there is any basis to argue that the words of the Constitution mean anything in particular. Assume this is the case. Why is your interpretation, based on some principle, any better?
Regards,
Shodan
I continue to find it interesting that women spontaneously (and naturally, I might add) abort many, many fertilized eggs before they even know they’re pregnant, for a variety of reasons. Some have too many genetic abnormalities and are aborted. Sometimes, the woman’s body knows it does not have the resources to support a pregnancy. Sometimes its because she’s at the wrong point in her cycle and although an egg might be there and it might be fertilized, it’ll never implant and out it goes. Sometimes it’s due to the birth control she’s using. Sometimes, tragically, it’s later in her pregnancy and it’s a baby she desperately wants, but something goes wrong and she miscarries.
I have an IUD. I love it. I can see why it’s the most popular form of birth control for women in the medical professions. I love it because I never, ever think about birth control any more. I don’t have to - yet I remain childless. There are some who would outlaw IUDs because they are considered abortifacients. Just as there are some (unethical, I might add) pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control pills to women.
How far are you willing to take it to “protect life,” as it were? Are you going to arrest me, because I have an IUD (even though I have one because I, and many others, see it as a responsible choice that keeps me from getting pregnant)? Are you going to arrest my sister-in-law for her two miscarriages, because her body “killed” a human life (even though she desperately wants a child)? Are you going to arrest the mothers of stillborns, because their bodies rejected a life? Are you going to try to legislate reproduction such that childless couples had better never have sex unless they’re trying to get pregnant? Are you going to imprison women who choose to smoke, drink, and do drugs during their pregnancies, even the woman who has a glass of wine before she discovers she’s pregnant?
You scoff, and call me obsurd. “Of course not - some of the above situations are accidents, or could never have been foreseen or prevented.” Yet there’s too many who would do exactly those things. I don’t want to live in that world.
I think you’re talking about a zygote after mitosis, since I’m sure we both know that no one fights for the rights of spermatocytes. (Hey, that rhymes.) Please, find the time to read “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” by Roger Werthheimer. It was originally in the Fall, 1971 issue of Philosophy and Public Affairs, and it’s been reprinted elsewhere since then. Way back at the dawn of time, I wrote an essay on abortion for a moral philosophy class, and I decided two things: I’m pro-choice, and anyone who thinks that one side’s obviously right and the other’s obviously wrong hasn’t thought about it enough.
There are even consequences that have nothing to do with abortion itself. What about income tax deductions? Currently a child must be born alive by December 31 200X to qualify as a dependent on the 200X tax return. If the moment of conception defines “full human and legal personhood”, then I guess that fetus qualifies as long as the woman is pregnant by December 31. And since a child born alive by December 31 qualifies, even if the child only lives for a few minutes, I guess people will also get the exemption for early miscarriages. Same thing for public assistance benefits and federal student aid. And what about inheritance? IANAL, but I seem to remember a rule that if a man leaves a certain amount of property to be divided among his children, and his wife is pregnant when he dies, the number the property is divided among depends on whether there is ultimately a live birth. If a non-citizen gets pregnant while in the US, and delivers elsewhere, will that child be a citizen?
I think you have a severely inaccurate impression of public opinion on this issue.
The Center for the Advancement of Women, headed by former Planned Parenthood president Faye Wattleton, comissioned a report from Princeton Survey Research Associates on contemporary women’s issues, which was published in June 2003. Of 3,329 women surveyed, 51 percent wanted to ban abortion altogether or to limit it to cases of rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is endangered. Another 17 percent said the procedure should be available under stricter limits than now apply.
I don’t suppose you have a link to the actual survey or at least a more formal reporting of the results.
Center for the Advancement of Women.
Progress & Perils — The Survey. See Part Two, pp. 9-11.
Well, I can’t vouch for their sanity, though I strongly suspect they are sane, but there are many on this very board who believe abortion ends a life, and that a mother is within her rights to do so.
Honestly, this is fucking tortuous. There is no serious medical dispute that abortion ends a human life. Argue that the entity has not achieved “personhood.” Argue that the sovereignty of a mother’s body trumps any possible right to life a fetus may possess. But a fetus is alive, and a fetus is human. It is inarguable, for Christ’s sake. It is by definition.
Why the hell would you build a pro-choice argument on a foundation that asserts a fetus is not alive? That a fetus is not human? Let me assure you, he ain’t an ostrich. You don’t get to re-define biological terms like “alive” and “human,” as much as it might bring you a certain peace of mind.
God almighty! beagledave, where are you?