Cite?
Well, you lost my vote.
With this new study I think the next step is obvious:
A Clockwork Orange-like clamps to force the other half of women to view the ultrasound.
I have no problem with her owing a ‘special duty’ to that child – I just don’t believe any such duty overrides her right to put and keep only what she wants inside her body.
Understood. Your position is not unreasonable.
I just don’t share it.
Even after birth we still allow bodily autonomy to trump the rights of the child. I am not legally compelled to provide my child with blood or organs even if only my organ will keep the child alive.
I’ll specify though that my position as stated is my view on the legal matter, not the moral issue. I don’t offer this argument to answer the question whether as a personal moral decision, a woman should consider abortion. I believe that because it is such a difficult decision, and because in order to restrict a woman’s decision, the state would essentially be reaching into a person’s own body that the state should not be allowed to take a stand on the matter from a legal point of view.
Yep.
And the meta-argument is that, when two groups of people hold differing views about this, then the U.S. Constitution pretty much suggests that “hands off” is the proper governmental approach to the matter. Having laws that compel people to follow practices in their own bodies that they disagree with is troubling.
At the meta-level, don’t use the vast power of the government to compel people to act against their beliefs in their own bodies.
(Jehovahs Witnesses can be compelled to allow their children to accept life-saving blood donations…because these are matters taking place in other people’s bodies. Just wanted to head off that possible response.)
Right. That’s what I was trying to suggest in my last post. Because people like me and people like Bricker disagree so fundamentally on this issue, and it essentially occurs entirely inside one person’s body—thus, having a very limited effect on society—the state should not choose sides.
But that’s not the law. The law says that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the life of the fetus that will become a human being.
IIRC the Roe v. Wade court decision was largely based on health risks to the mother – the risks of an abortion were considerably less than the health risks of ongoing pregnancy and subsequent delivery. And so outlawing abortions was forcing to woman into a higher risk to her health than was necessary.
And in theory, should technological advances change this risk calculation, a legislature or a future court might legitimately come to a different conclusion.
At least that is how a law school teacher characterized it to me once.
Does this mark the first time in history that the law has been unreasonable, irrational and unjust? Is there some other deference due to something simply because a sufficient number of faulty humans agreed upon it?
It is far more certain that you and I will eventually become wormfood than that a fetus will become a human being.
The strike zone of a batter is armpits to knees. A pitched ball is not a strike unless it passes through that zone.
You cannot argue that the umpire’s call is due no deference simply because “a sufficient number of faulty humans” agreed that this is how we would define the strike zone.
Similarly, we have a system by which we faulty humans in the United States craft our laws.
I don’t make the claim that those laws then attain some supernatural aura of accuracy – but, equally, neither do they vanish at your whim.
They are simply how we have agreed, in advance, to govern ourselves.
And the compromise, the “art of the possible,” is that this governmental interest is graduated, rising from a very low priority in the early months of a pregnancy, and only attaining a high priority later in the term, as the fetus nears viability.
Mandatory sonograms have the intent of extending that interest backward in time, and increasing the government’s interest. It is intended to impose an undue burden on the woman, to place financial and physical obstacles in the way of her exercise of her rights. It is both a violation of the law as set down by the Supreme Court, and a trespass against the established compromise of graduated interests.
It’s very much akin to voter registration laws: it does not have the actual purpose and intent that it is declared, by its supporters, to have. It is based on a philosophical lie, and for that reason is pretty rotten legislation.
It’s argumentative, disputatious, and contentious, and that, too, is a poor basis for lawmaking in a free country. Laws are best based on consensus, not on “Gotcha!”
Typical Bricker non-response.
You use language as an obstacle to communication, not to facilitate it.
You are not a nice person, and your rhetorical style is appalling. Palinesque (either Sarah or Michael, or perhaps both.)
We’re still talking thousands, though----see 3rd and 4th paragraphs in linked article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/20/rep-todd-akin-is-wrong-about-rape-and-pregnancy-but-hes-not-alone/
Well, now I’m curious how “rapey” (legitimate, one might say) the circumstances have to be. Does the woman have to file an actual police report, or is it sufficient if she signs a form that can stay in the doctor’s medical records?
We all know what the law is. My comment was directed at what I think it should be. And I have a feeling I’ve said that to you before.
Good grief. You said, “It’s argumentative, disputatious, and contentious, and that, too, is a poor basis for lawmaking in a free country. Laws are best based on consensus, not on ‘Gotcha!’”
I replied, “I’ll keep that in mind,” while linking to the Affordable Care Act website. The clear and obvious inference from that response is to point out that your supposed fealty to lawmaking unencumbered by argument, dispute, and contention is a sham, since the propositions underlying the Affordable Care Act are also " argumentative, disputatious, and contentious," and this doesn’t vitiate your support one iota.
So I could have typed all that out, ensuring that cognitively impaired – or humor-impaired – persons such as yourself were not flummoxed by my impenetrable, obscure inference. I chose instead to make the point concisely, in a way that was crystal-clear to any reasonable reader. Obviously, that excluded you, an omission that this lengthy explanation should rectify.