response 47 of 331:

Feb 25 16:30 UTC 2006

Re #44, in general we do not grant human beings the right to hook
themselves up to somebody else's circulatory system in order to draw
sustenance from it.  If my kidneys failed and the only available remedy
was for me to connect my bloodstream up to Nathan's so that his kidneys
would perform double-duty, I suppose it would be nice for Nathan to
agree to such a thing but it would be illegal to force him.  If we were
already hooked up in this fashion, Nathan would have the legal right to
be disconnected from me if he wanted.  If that resulted in my death then
that's unfortunate but it wouldn't make Nathan, nor the doctor who
disconnected the tubes, a murderer.

The pro-life view seems to create an exception to this general
principle, and accord embryos the "special right" to draw sustenance
from the body of a nonconsenting person.  If this is not a special right
for embryos then we are left with the question of who else gets this
right and what its impacts are with respect to questions like whether it
should be lawful to compel, say, the donation of blood, marrow, and
organs.  At this point is is not lawful to do this, and as far as I know
few people in the pro-life movement have proposed changing this even
though it could save a lot of lives.

The "rape or incest" exceptions are interesting mainly because they
provide insight into the reasoning one uses.  If you are pro-life
because you believe an unborn child has rights and abortion is murder,
then you should oppose such exceptions because murder is worse than rape
or incest and compounding one crime by committing a greater one is not
an acceptable remedy.  On the other hand, if you are pro-life because
abortion allows women to escape their rightful punishment for being
sluts, then you should favor rape and incest exceptions because they
mean that it wasn't the woman's fault she got pregnant.

Polling data shows us that, among pro-lifers, roughly 2/3rds of them
favor the rape and incest exception to an abortion prohibition, while
the other third think that abortion should only be permitted to save the
woman's life or never.  Note that this is polling them on their personal
opinion about abortion, not what political compromises they would be
willing to make in order to get a law enacted.  I haven't yet found any
good alternative to the conclusion that 2/3rds of pro-lifers are
primarily motivated by the desire to punish sluts.

response 49 of 331:

Feb 25 17:47 UTC 2006

I'm only talking about pro-lifers.  If you think that early-term
elective abortions should be legal then you're not pro-life.

response 51 of 331:

Feb 25 18:06 UTC 2006

That's near to what the Supreme Court concluded in Roe vs Wade. Not that 
late term abortion is inhumane, of course, but just that it can be made 
illegal.

"The Court ruled that the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion
during the first trimester, the state can regulate the abortion procedure
during the second trimester "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal
health," and in the third trimester, demarcating the viability of the fetus,
a state can choose to restrict or even to proscribe abortion as it sees fit."

(from the Wikipedia)

response 53 of 331:

Feb 26 01:40 UTC 2006

If Roe were overturned, and congress passed a federal law making 
abortion illegal, you would see abortions treated as a capital crime 
like any other murder.  Meaning that if you support the death penalty 
for anyone who commits murder, you logically must then support a 
pregnant mother getting the death penalty if she's had an abortion. 

Or are you going to give life in prison to a woman who has an abortion 
because she's been raped by a close relative, or her life was in danger 
if she'd given birth?

The point is that it is EASY to be pro-life when you don't have to deal 
with the consequences of that position, and enforcing laws that would 
outlaw it.  Until you have to start throwing women in jail as "baby 
killers"  Until you start having to force women suspected of having had 
abortions to submit to medical testing to try and prove it, so they can 
be jailed.  

Being pro-life is one thing, but abortion being illegal just wouldn't 
work as a practical matter.

response 55 of 331:

Feb 26 01:55 UTC 2006

If you hire a hit man to commit a murder, you can get charged with that 
murder.  In the case of murder, you do not have to have held the murder 
weapon in your hand and actually have done the act, to get charged with 
the crime.

response 57 of 331:

Feb 26 02:08 UTC 2006

Of course its easy to be pro-choice because with that position, you 
aren't required to pass and enforce laws to prevent something from 
happening.  And you aren't required to raise taxes to build more jails 
to house all those women and doctors you plan to arrest.  

Also there is no such thing as a "pre-born infant", that is more bull 
from the pro-life side.  An infant is a human being who has been born, 
by definition, you can't be "pre-born"

response 59 of 331:

Feb 26 02:26 UTC 2006

Just out of curiosity, nharmon, do you know the circumstances where a
D&X is likely to be performed? 

I think that it is a procedure used most often in cases where the fetus
has a disease called hydrocephalus. It is a condition where fluid builds
in the brain, causing the head to enlarge. The fetus is alive but will
not live for more than a few hours at most after birth. The head of the
fetus in this case is enlarged to the point where a vaginal birth is not
possible. The options are essentially, a C-Section which is VERY
invasive and which has a lot of risks or a D&X where the baby is
delivered vaginally by collapsing the head (and killing the fetus). This
procedure is much much better for the health of the mother than a
C-section. The outcome is essentially the same except in the latter
case, the fetus dies a couple of hours sooner. 

It isnt like women are sitting around with healthy pregnancies going
"Shoot, I've been pregnant for eight and a half months, I cant take it
anymore, GIVE me a D and X!"

Ok, ok, at least one of my friends has said that but it was a hot summer
and I am sure everyone will be happy to know that she gave birth to a
healthy girl three weeks later

response 61 of 331:

Feb 26 02:39 UTC 2006

kingjon said:

"And the idea that an infant is only a human being that has been born 
is a falsehood put about by the pro-choice side."

It is not a falsehood.  An infant is by definition one who is 
in "infancy", as in one who's life has just started.  A fetus is not an 
infant, because when a fetus is in the woman's womb, it is not part of 
its own life, it is part of its mother's life.  The mother is not an 
infant and the fetus is part of the mother's body.  When a human being 
breathes on its own, that is when its life starts, and when it starts 
the "infancy" or beginning of its own life.  A fetus CANNOT be an 
infant in the womb because it has not begun its infancy.  

response 63 of 331:

Feb 26 02:43 UTC 2006

That is what is called "petitio principii", or "begging the question." You
define life (or infancy) as beginning at the first breath, and then say that by
definition a fetus cannot be a living human being (or an infant). I can use my
own definition and say that "by definition" anything at all, but I'm choosing
not to.

response 65 of 331:

Feb 26 02:52 UTC 2006

Infant has several definitions, the most common one being early childhood,
not yet capable of speech, coming from the French meaning incapable of speech.
Child - an unborn or recently born person.  So a child can be unborn but I
have never heard of infant being used that way.  Child is related to a Gothic
word for womb.  Life does not start at conception because the egg and sperm
are already alive.  A fertilized egg can become two embryos up to about 2
weeks.  Towards the end of the 2 weeks it is more likely to become conjoined
twins.  90% of pairs of identical twins do not get born - one or both die in
the womb due to competition.  Is a fertilized egg that splits into two embryos
one or two independent lives, before it splits?

response 67 of 331:

Feb 26 02:57 UTC 2006

Let's ban butchering of livestock, which is inhumane and unnecessary, and
kills life.

response 69 of 331:

Feb 26 03:18 UTC 2006

We must go with the MORAL view, which states that a parent may, without
reprecussion, kill their child up to a month after they are born.

response 71 of 331:

Feb 26 03:29 UTC 2006

I agree.  Questions of "when does life begin?" or "when does an embryo
become human?" are red herrings which are not particularly relevant to the
legal questions; people like to bring them up as a distraction so they
can debate how many zygotes can dance on the head of a pin.