So why does abortion belong in those categories? I think Justice White said it best:
Justice White was out to lunch when he noted:
Bullshit. Moving from inside another human being to not-inside another human being represents a fairly significant and unmistakable change in circumstances.
He also demonstrates that his training in in law and not science when he tries to rationalize his views by pointing out “that the fetus is an entity that bears in its cells all the genetic information that characterizes a member of the species homo sapiens and distinguishes an individual member of that species from all others”, which conveniently overlooks the nature of identical twins. If unique genetics is a factor in the fetus’s favor, does this mean if a woman is pregnant with identical twins, she can selectively abort one of them? No unique genetic information is being lost, after all.
The characteristics of the fetus are irrelevant. The imperatives of the woman take precedence if one has respect for the rights of women. I’m not sure what White’s record was on this, but if this dissent is any indication, I’m not hopeful.
Which would take months, probably at least as long as finishing a second-trimester pregnancy. (Let’s also bear in mind that it would be a super shitty thing to do.) And in the meantime, I have to keep my daughter in my home and take care of her, or face legal sanction. (I’m guessing you regret this analogy, even if you’re unlikely to say so.)
What I wrote was in relation to the Groningen Protocol in which neonatal can be terminated.
You start off with this plea:
And then you go on to label them the “abortion-ban movement” and the “anti-choice movement”. What’s wrong with just calling them the “pro-life movement”? Too much “good faith” for your taste?
“Pro-life” is pretty bogus, TBH. It implies that anyone not in that camp is “anti-life”.
I don’t know why we can’t just say “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion rights”.
It didn’t even occur to me to regret it and you’re giving me no reason to do so. If you want to get your daughter out of your house quickly, you can do that quite legally just by arranging a babysitting service of some kind or a boarding school or any number of options. If you’re willing to involve Child Protective Services (or your local equivalent, assuming your local Republicans haven’t completely defunded it by now), you can probably expedite things if you can truthfully say there’s a risk you’ll harm your child or your child will harm you.
The formal and permanent severance of custody will take months, sure. So what? The relevant aspect to this conversation is that no politician (as far as I know) is trying to make it impossible for you to give up your child, saying “you have to take responsibility, you have no choice, I’m taking your choices away from you.”
Whether or not this would be a shitty thing to do is something I leave to you to consider, since you brought it up. I’m not interested in trying to trap people in bad situations by denying them access to legal remedies, even if they happen to be shitty people. Better a legal remedy exists than the child just be abandoned somewhere or thrown out to fend for herself.
Huh. You made a claim that “the vast majority of abortions are not performed because of severe fetal deformity” which I’m willing to assume is true. I’m pointing out that the reason for that is that the pro-lifers have made it so.
Sure, a secular person COULD say that. And I would listen to them as much as I would someone who says “That gun looks scary! Let’s ban it!” - that is, not at all. And neither should anyone.
I’m fairly certain that 10s of thousands of stray dogs are killed every year.
Because the “anti-aborts” don’t want a negative label. And they want us to be labelled “pro-abortion” like we are running around demanding that pre-born babies be murdered.
If nothing else would make me distance myself from the anti-abort camp, it’s their horrendous misuse of the language.
I don’t think it is realistic to say that the reason the vast majority of abortions in the US are performed on the healthy fetus of a healthy mother is because of those who want to outlaw the abortion of a healthy fetus of a healthy mother.
If you are working to ban something, it doesn’t seem reasonable to blame you for its happening so much.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s like banning people from sleeping on the streets and under bridges when you’ve created an economic system that results in a great deal of poverty and homelessness.
If you’re creating the circumstances that will lead to a lot of women being pregnant when they don’t want to have children, then you can say what you want about how you’re working to try to ban abortions: they’re still happening because of circumstances you helped create. Facile bullshit doesn’t change that.
Ah, yes, the law is applied equally: A 9 year old who was raped and is carrying twins that will kill her before she can carry them long enough to carry them to viability is treated the same as a 25 year old who sees pregnancy as an “inconvenience” and is too selfish to carry the baby to term and given it to a nice married straight couple. Neither one can get a legal abortion.
Maybe when people apply for marriage licenses, we should all take a vote to decide whether they can get married or not.
As octopus has pointed out, we live in a democracy. :rolleyes:
Which is why Hobby Lobby got told to stick their ridiculous case where the sun don’t shine. :rolleyes:
I assume “hard ban” means no abortions after 13 weeks, period.
How do I feel about that? I think that would be horrid. Abominable.
If a 4-month fetus dies in the mother’s womb, that would mean you’d insist that she carry that dead baby until her body gets around to rejecting it. Horrible.
OK, maybe you don’t mean that. I expect you probably don’t. But IF you don’t, obviously it’s not clear what you DO mean, so how the hell would I know how I feel about it, when I don’t even know what ‘it’ is?
I don’t think removing a dead baby from the womb is what most people think of as “abortion”. YMMV, but the Georgia law that is the topic of this thread handles this issue:
And yet, insists on the terminology of “unborn child”. Perhaps you will enlighten us as to the definition of “unborn child”? in what respect is it different from the standard medical term “fetus”?
And why, precisely, is this terminology preferable as legal language?
Again, from the law:
“Fetus”, AFAIK, refers to an “unborn child” in a particular stage of development (9+ weeks, right?)
Yeah, it’s sophistry. The thing isn’t even a human, much less a child.
It’s definitely a human. See Merriam-Webster, for one example:
(emphasis mine)