There should be no legal restrictions on abortion because they cause harm and do no good. Any woman who simply doesn’t want to be pregnant isn’t going to wait until the third trimester to have an abortion; she’s going to have one as soon as possible. Practically all third-trimester abortions are performed for medical reasons. The fetus is malformed or died, the woman may die, and so on. If there are laws restricting abortion, the doctor is going to hesitate and may not use best medical judgement out of fear of being arrested. The woman dies, the fetus dies (or already died), and the doctor ends up in prison. What was the point of the law again?
To provide product for the adoption industry to make their profits and to punish women for enjoying sex.
That’s your opinion. It is not what the law says, and it is not what a great many of us happen to believe.
I’ll respect your beliefs regarding your life and property; you respect mine regarding mine.
You can’t force people to feed and house the homeless, even if they’ll die otherwise. You can’t force women to feed and house homeless fetuses, even if they’ll die otherwise. Has nothing to do with the rights of the fetus, even if it were a full grown person they still wouldn’t have the right to demand a woman’s energy, time, body or home.
This is a rational compromise. I wish that everyone concerned could accept this stance as a universally acceptable moderate position.
“In most cases?” Have there been cases of doctors forced to perform abortions? (I mean outside of Red China?)
But, yes, the doctor is included in the phrase because, by and large, women cannot perform their own abortions. It’s a recognition of dependency, but also a recognition of the right to privacy.
We already have some limited forms of medical early-term abortifacient medications: the “morning after pill.” It is not beyond possibility that, some day, the doctor won’t be necessary at all, and women will be able to end their own pregnancies without need for assistance.
That’s not true. The 5th amendment clearly states persons have the right to not be deprived of their life or liberty without due process of law. Forcing a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy clearly deprives her of her liberty and may deprive her of her life. Therefore making laws prohibiting abortion, or restricting abortion, are unconstitutional.
Whether it is constitutional for governments to prohibit health clinics from operating in certain regions is somewhat an iffy area. Businesses should be required to follow governmental regulations. However, since the clear intent of the laws is not to ensure safety, I suspect these laws don’t pass muster.
Fetuses are not persons and do not have any rights.
If you arrive home to find you next door neighbor beating the shit out of his three year old daughter, I assume you will seek to intervene.
And I assume you won’t stop because he says, “I believe that until children are seven, they are simply property. I know you don’t believe that, but you should respect my beliefs as I respect yours.”
However, you are perfectly entitled to say to him, “Sorry: I don’t agree that a three year is simply property, and I believe your three year old is entitled to protection. I know you disagree, and in a representative democracy, when we disagree about what social policy should be, we have a method to resolve those disagreements. Your view and my view are at odds, but society has sided with me and rejects your view.”
Right?
Same thing with abortion, much as it pains me to say. Society has rendered its judgement.
That’s not true. As the Supreme Court explained in Casey:
(Emphasis added)
Emphasis added. You are forgetting the qualifier.
If that’s what you believe, you should try to intervene physically with every woman who wants an abortion. You’d be one of those sign-carrying protesters. Why aren’t you doing that right now? Are you either 1) ok with murder, 2) don’t think its murder, or 3) think its murder but are ok with not intervening?
I don’t read the bolded portion as giving the fetus ‘rights’, but more so saying that the state has an interest in providing help and services for pregnant women - obviously, that assumes the woman continues to carry the fetus.
Let me try and simplify my thought -
IF the woman continues to carry the child - the state has an interest in thier combined health (as a general principal, providing medical care and services to both, not to just one/other)
If the woman chooses to abort the fetus before viability - the state has no overwhelming interest to prevent
THose principles do not interfere with each other - but neither does the bolded one give the fetus any additional ‘rights’.
(4)
Think it’s morally murder but recognize that the law defines it otherwise, and that I am not entitled to substitute my opinion for the law.
That’s because there is no social division regarding three year old children being persons under the law. The consensus is virtually unanimous.
Such a division does exist regarding fetal personhood.
So…apples and hand-grenades. The two instances aren’t even close to comparable.
Exactly so. This is why it can be considered a felony to kill someone’s fetus without the mother’s consent. “Feticide” is a crime, without the fetus needing to have full legal personhood protections. It’s also against the law for me to kill someone else’s dog, but that doesn’t mean dogs have full personhood under the law.
You’re in the same position some of us are in regarding other Supreme Court decisions we don’t agree with. Congratulations. Remember to grant us the same consideration for our disagreement with, say, Citizens United, Hobby Lobby, or Kelo and New London. We’re stuck with the enforcement of the law as it is interpreted…but we don’t have to like it.
Of course.
And as it happens, I am no fan of Kelo.
Covering ground that others have already covered (but this is an abortion debate - we’re all retreading old arguments here).
To me, the key issue at the heart of the abortion debate is when a human life begins. Some people feel it begins at conception and some people feel it begins at birth. And there is no consensus on which of these views is correct.
So I feel if there’s no clear consensus by society on which view is correct, society cannot impose a view upon individuals. Therefore it’s best left to the individuals involved to decide when they believe life begins.
Cite? Which law says that, specifically?
Care to give us a cite for that claim?
Oh wait, you can’t – because the Constitution nowhere states that.
The record is quite clear than many of the Founding Fathers regarded the Judiciary as the WEAKEST of the three branches. Indeed, hints of that are found in the Constitution. See Article III, Section 2:
Even though the Judiciary is theoretically equal, in many ways it is subordinate to the other branches.